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Drone Footage of Arecibo Observatory Collapse

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Re: Drone Footage of Arecibo Observatory Collapse

#111

Post by mcguire »

sp332 wrote: post #25
blhack wrote: post #17

Is there any chance at all that this gets rebuilt? Is anybody even putting the costs requirements together to do it, or is this just a total loss? This is so unbelievably sad to see. It reminds me of seeing Notre Dame burning last year.

They barely had funding to do maintenance. There's no money to build a whole new one. The NSF is under contract to return the site to its original natural state. (I can't find a recent source for this but it's mentioned in https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/search-for-alien-... )

I was wondering about that. The Visitor's Center / Museum there was pretty nice.

Re: Drone Footage of Arecibo Observatory Collapse

#112

Post by dylan604 »

dvtrn wrote: post #88
dylan604 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just squeezing one last bit of science out of the place. Sure, it's not the science it was designed to for, but science none-the-less

You love to see it :) even in non-ideal situations such as this loss.

Sometimes there's more learning in the failure than the success

Re: Drone Footage of Arecibo Observatory Collapse

#115

Post by db48x »

bob1029 wrote: post #12
lgrebe wrote: post #6

Why were they filming? As in why was the drone in place and looking at a close-up of the cable?

This is quite the coincidence. The drone operator seemed prepared for exactly what was coming.

Everyone has known for weeks that it would collapse, and that they could no longer even demolish it safely.

Re: Drone Footage of Arecibo Observatory Collapse

#116

Post by jacurtis »

jacobwilliamroy wrote: post #103

Are they going to clean that up? Is "decommissioning" just a fancy word for "leaving a big pile of garbage in the woods?"

Well it is operated by the National Science Foundation. So we can hope that they have an interest in preserving the forest floor below.

But then again, with budget cuts and the decreasing budgets that science and climate organizations have been getting from the government lately, this is entirely possible.

Re: Drone Footage of Arecibo Observatory Collapse

#117

Post by markdown »

ilamont wrote: post #30

The instrument platform was listed at 900 tons. The maximum takeoff weight of a Boeing 787 is just over 500,000 pounds, or 250 tons ... is it fair to say the instrument platform was the equivalent of three fully loaded 787s, plus two M1A1 tanks piled on for good measure? That's a lot of weight for those cables to support.

But how many football fields wide was it, and how many olympic swimming pools could you pour into it before it was full?

Re: Drone Footage of Arecibo Observatory Collapse

#119

Post by petschge »

rohansingh wrote: post #78
petschge wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was still way more requests for observing time and the total amount of time available in the last cycles. Also there is a lot of value to have long-term datasets that are recorded with the same instruments as it removes a lot of systematics. Nanograph is being badly bitten by that, as they use pulsar timing data over 10 or 12 years. (And were likely only 1 or 2 years away from results, which may now be delayed…

Doesn't the instrument itself change over those long time periods?

Yes, there is some changes. Clocks drift, analog receivers age, and so on.
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