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Drone Footage of Arecibo Observatory Collapse

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Re: Drone Footage of Arecibo Observatory Collapse

#241
post #235
post #230

So how much is it going to cost to completely clean up the structure as compared to how much it would have cost to properly maintain it?

This is what I'm wondering as well. Who is in charge of cleaning this up and restoring the gaping wound in this ecosystem?

NSF is responsible for the site restoration, which is one of the reasons NSF wanted to "divest" (transfer ownership). The last EPA study from a few years back had an estimate of something near $100 Million USD (roughly 10yrs of operating budget for AO prior to collapse).

Re: Drone Footage of Arecibo Observatory Collapse

#242

It feels like the death of American ingenuity. We've fallen from the era where we sent echoes to our neighbours and the stars. When we found clearings in jungles and turned them into monuments to humanity. The time when we put our best foot forward and reached ahead, into the future, racing towards a brighter tomorrow for humanity. I mourn for what has been lost. The American century wasn't punctuated by a war, but b…

This is your take on the day before SpaceX attempts to fly the worlds first fully reusable spacecraft to 15 km and land it? That if successful will put larger payloads into space at less than one hundredth the cost of the Space Shuttle, and enable manned deep space missions to Mars and beyond? Just weeks after Apple unveiled the worlds fastest CPU core running on only 15 watts (with credit to a Brit architecture)? If…

My take on it is that many of the fundamental advancements in the last couple of decades are increasingly shifting from the public sector into the private sector.

SpaceX benefits NASA, but it is beholden to itself and it's shareholders, not the public (this being said as a massive SpaceX fanboy). Same with Apple. These companies exist to benefit themselves first, civilization second.

Conversely, if the development of the fastest CPU was funded by direct government funding it would be available as a foundation for future use by all, instead of other manufacturers needing to (re)discover the techniques themselves.

Re: Drone Footage of Arecibo Observatory Collapse

#243

That thing weighs 900 tons. Why is it so heavy?

It is, well, was , enormous. The rectangular blocklike structure above the left side of the ring in this image is a roughly 8 ft x 8 ft x 20 ft (2.5m x 2.5m x 7m) shack. There might be a few humans in the frame though they're difficult to distinguish from equipment. The long structure descending off to the right is a gantry / catwalk. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/13/Arecibo_... To the right here:…

Great photos. Thank you!

Re: Drone Footage of Arecibo Observatory Collapse

#245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are requests a valid measurement of value? Why didn't the astronomer community band together to save it? They've funded a good number of very expensive telescopes the last 20 years, the fact they didn't fund refurbishment here sees to tell a great deal about its actual value over building new radio telescopes.

The astronomer community couldn't save it the same reason they can't build a new one - these are national projects, funded from national funds. The scale of academic science funding is simply on the wrong scale for major projects like Arecibo, or CERN, or the NIF. No grant of a few thousand dollars is going to crowdsource a radiotelescope. In any event, the NSF would be the one giving the astronomers the funds in the…

I heard estimates that fixing it could have cost up to $150M.Yet just in the last few years, Astronomers were able to find funding for:

MeerKAT: $330M

ELT: > $1B

GMT: $1B

Thirty Meter: $2.4B

Vera Rubin: $473M

James Webb: $10B++

WFirst: $4B

FAST (China): $180M

SKA: $1B

NOEMA: $70M

The last three are radio telescopes, which show both the range of funding available for new radio telescopes, and also serve as evidence we've gone beyond Arecibo.

I am no astro-rocket-surgeon, but I've been led to believe the problem with Arecibo is that it's giant dish was only an advantage for sending signals, while astronomy's overwhelming needs are to receive fainter signals which networks of dishes like SKA can do a much more amazing job at.

Re: Drone Footage of Arecibo Observatory Collapse

#246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The astronomer community couldn't save it the same reason they can't build a new one - these are national projects, funded from national funds. The scale of academic science funding is simply on the wrong scale for major projects like Arecibo, or CERN, or the NIF. No grant of a few thousand dollars is going to crowdsource a radiotelescope. In any event, the NSF would be the one giving the astronomers the funds in the…

I heard estimates that fixing it could have cost up to $150M.Yet just in the last few years, Astronomers were able to find funding for: MeerKAT: $330M ELT: > $1B GMT: $1B Thirty Meter: $2.4B Vera Rubin: $473M James Webb: $10B++ WFirst: $4B FAST (China): $180M SKA: $1B NOEMA: $70M The last three are radio telescopes, which show both the range of funding available for new radio telescopes, and also serve as evidence we…

Note that FAST was built by China alone, SKA is an international collaboration but without US involvement and NOEMA does have a partnership agreement for data access with the university of Michigan, but is operated and payed for by IRAM, a collaboration between France, Germany and Spain. Meerkat (at the top of the list) is also a radio telescope and while it is not build solely by South Africa and Germany, I have not heard of any US involvement that goes beyond US citizens hiring on at Hartrao or Cape Town. And in the last few years NSF has not just stopped funding Arecibo Observatory, but also Greenbank Observatory. (But they were more successful in finding their on funding and staying operational.)

And while the planetary radar at Arecibo was one of a kind, and something that simply no other facility has right now, it is not the only food thing about AO. The huge collecting area and the low noise receivers were actually rather good at finding faint signals. Networks of dishes shine when it comes to resolving power, but they have their own drawbacks such as poor coverage of the u-v plane or the inability to image extended faint objects.

Re: Drone Footage of Arecibo Observatory Collapse

#247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Steel is pretty heavy... 1T is merely a 1m * 1m * 12.5cm slab.

To be fair, if you have a 12.5cm slab of steel, you're probably doing something wrong. Or trying to build battleship armor. Steel beams will have a thickness of ~1cm steel at most, and steel plates will usually be much thinner.

> Steel beams will have a thickness of ~1cm steel at most

Your idea of the world is pretty limited... Any beams above S8x23 / W12x53 (ie. the bottom of the beam tables) will have a web above 3/8".

Re: Drone Footage of Arecibo Observatory Collapse

#248
post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe his take is after the USA didn't manage to contain an epidemic, used its power to steal medical equipment from other countries, developed a marvelous vaccine that will sell at a high price for other countries after vaccinating itself.

>Maybe his take is after the USA didn't manage to contain an epidemic Combined with the crucial failure of China that kept it under lid for too long, and followed by most of the rest of the world who also failed to contain it. > used its power to steal medical equipment from other countries, What are you talking about? > developed a marvelous vaccine that will sell at a high price for other countries after vaccinatin…

This is what I mean: USA Divert masks of other countries: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/03/mask-wars-coro...
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