That thing weighs 900 tons. Why is it so heavy?
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Drone Footage of Arecibo Observatory Collapse
141–150 of 248 posts
Re: Drone Footage of Arecibo Observatory Collapse
#142It 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…
You're joking, right? 2020 is a year where SpaceX flew humans to space for the first time ever on a commercial vehicle, we created and started to distribute a vaccine for a never-before-seen virus in under a year, and we began to hook rural people who've never had access to high-quality internet up via a constellation of thousands of micro-satellites in LEO. Sure, not everything is rosy, but we're still capable of so…
If you want to assign countries to companies or divisions of companies, I think Deepmimd is (still) more representative of British ingenuity.
Re: Drone Footage of Arecibo Observatory Collapse
#143It 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…
Do you realize other countries were involved in all of those "American accomplishments"? And that those other countries contribute to, as much as America if not more, for those goals? Jeez, the American bubble is far smaller than I expected.
Re: Drone Footage of Arecibo Observatory Collapse
#144That thing weighs 900 tons. Why is it so heavy?
Steel is pretty heavy... 1T is merely a 1m * 1m * 12.5cm slab.
Re: Drone Footage of Arecibo Observatory Collapse
#145An hour-long tour of the dish and platform, from 2014, gives a sense of scale. And aging.
Re: Drone Footage of Arecibo Observatory Collapse
#146Are they going to clean that up? Is "decommissioning" just a fancy word for "leaving a big pile of garbage in the woods?"
Another comment above says the NSF is contracted to return the site to its natural state and that since the collapse it is safer to enter the structure and begin removal.
Re: Drone Footage of Arecibo Observatory Collapse
#147Ouch. If there's a video more representative of 2020 than this one, I haven't seen it, and don't want to.
Re: Drone Footage of Arecibo Observatory Collapse
#148So if they knew there is no money to even maintain it and this collapse was a likely outcome why not lower the platform in advance before any cable breaks? Just from a safety perspective omitting this seems to be somewhat negligent, no?
I'm not sure it was possible, the cables were likely anchored (frayed then sunk in concrete), it would have required setting up a mobile anchor, cutting the cable from the anchor, adding lengths of cables somehow, and unspooling those extra lengths. It's already not done for suspension bridges[0], I don't think it could be done here. And the risk would obviously have been gigantic as two cables had already snapped in…
Quick google: Presently, cable replacement designs are being developed for three suspension bridges in the United States. All three are important river crossings at or near a major metropolitan area and must remain open to traffic during construction. These cable replacement designs will need to overcome myriad difficulties, including cable support at the existing tower tops and placement of new anchorages within restricted available spaces. Alternatives will include placing the new cables above or adjacent to the existing ones. The construction procedures and load transfer sequencing is a critical part of the design. The new cables will need to be erected in their free position and will undergo substantial deformations as the load is transferred to them. Additionally, the existing cables and towers will undergo their own deformations, as will the bridge superstructure as it is released from the old and supported by the new suspension system. The work will require extensible hangers to accomplish the load transfer, and all operations must be coordinated to limit changes in the roadway geometry and stresses in the superstructure, towers and suspension components.
Re: Drone Footage of Arecibo Observatory Collapse
#149Is 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.
We could build an entirely new one from scratch if we decided to manufacture one less F-35.
Is this accurate? That seems insane.
Re: Drone Footage of Arecibo Observatory Collapse
#150It 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…
Do you realize other countries were involved in all of those "American accomplishments"? And that those other countries contribute to, as much as America if not more, for those goals? Jeez, the American bubble is far smaller than I expected.
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