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Arecibo telescope, on the brink of collapse, will be dismantled

sciencemag.org

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Re: Arecibo telescope, on the brink of collapse, will be dismantled

#161

Post by themaninthedark »

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #135
ardy42 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is this a symbol of the degradation of human intellectual capability in the 21st century? No, it's a symbol of the degradation of US political capability in the 21st century. To be more explicit: why build a telescope like this if you axiomatically believe the free market will do everything worth doing and that the government projects are waste by definition? There was a time when those ideas weren't so dominant, a…

>There was a time when those ideas weren't so dominant, That was also a time when three news networks controlled everything on TV. Print media had "journalistic integrity" (i.e. was buddy-buddy with existing institutions) so you never got to hear about it when the police kicked in a black guy's skull for no reason or when a construction project turned into a boondoggle handout for someone well connected. It was also…

>"You mean they actually vote for the lizards?" >"Oh yes," said Ford with a shrug, "of course." >"But," said Arthur, going for the big one again, "why?" >"Because if they didn't vote for a lizard," said Ford, "the >wrong lizard might get in. Got any gin?"

This view isn't new, right now half the US is celebrating that we have elected a career politician because he is better then the millionaire that was previously elected...

People in the streets are angry because the media is telling them to be angry. How many riots and demonstrations occurred after Snowden revealed that the government was breaking the law and spying on it's citizens? Or when the telecom companies were given retroactive immunity for doing so?

Re: Arecibo telescope, on the brink of collapse, will be dismantled

#162

Post by 1MoreThing »

xyzzyz wrote: post #97
ardy42 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But infrastructure ages, and 60 years isn't a bad run. What comes next? Clearly there's going to be a capabilities gap for a while, but now that it's 60 years after its original design, what kind of design is going to replace it? Do we even need giant monolith dishes anymore? China already built one: https://phys.org/news/2016-07-china-world-largest-radio-tele... . Given that it's nonmilitary US government infrastr…

> After all, why spend money on a telescope when the government can cut the budget to lower taxes a little bit more? The NSF budget had been steadily growing in real terms, and is now over 3 times larger than in early 80s (8 times in nominal terms). If Arecibo has not been getting enough money to maintain it, and if there is no plan for new telescope in its budget, it’s not because of “budget cuts”, but rather becaus…

Is it productivity, or is the work to mine new "knowledge coins" just harder now that we've done some of the easier work?

Re: Arecibo telescope, on the brink of collapse, will be dismantled

#163

Post by tomatotomato37 »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #21
myself248 wrote: post #10

Fuuuuuuuck. I understand the decision to dismantle the failing structure which is currently unsafe and tricky to repair. But might a new one be built in its place? How can we push for that?

I mean, it's location is still surely ideal. But it's clear the construction that's there isn't safe. I wonder if, provided they're able to dismantle the remaining facility without complete collapse, if it'd be reasonable to "rebuild" on the same site. It sounds like the towers should be rebuilt, all of the cables replaced, etc. And obviously the dish at minimum needs repair . I can't imagine anything would be salvag…

Is it an ideal location though? From an astrophysics perspective I bet it's ideal, but from a structural perspective it's still a large steel structure in the tropics that's also simultaneously in both a hurricane and earthquake zone, which to me seems closer to a worst case scenario than a perfect spot to build.

Ignoring geopolitical matters I wonder if an installation on the same latitude in the mexican mountains would be better spot to build such a thing.

Re: Arecibo telescope, on the brink of collapse, will be dismantled

#164

Post by [deleted] »

mncharity wrote: post #125
kgin wrote: post #34

When I was 5 years old, I saw a pbs documentary about the Arecibo telescope. During a shot of a huge expanse of the telescope's metal, the narrator said something to the effect of "as one gets closer to the equator the sun's rays are stronger and the metal becomes too hot to touch". This, combined with the fact that I had a globe with a raised ridge around the equator, caused me to assume (for many years) that the eq…

That's delightful. The ecology of science education misconceptions is a wild and wonderful thing. My best laugh of yesterday was this page[1] from the Stanford Solar Center, saying "It is a common misconception that the Sun is yellow, or orange or even red."... now look the page header, and at the rest of the site. Gee, I wonder where students, including astronomy graduate students, might come by such misconceptions?…

[deleted]

Re: Arecibo telescope, on the brink of collapse, will be dismantled

#165

Post by fennecfoxen »

unreal37 wrote: post #124
xianhn wrote: post #58

Sad day. I worked in radio astronomy and stayed on site for a week a few years back. Amazing telescope, the scale of it has to be seen to be believed. They have had serious funding issues for some time now, so now that it needs repair, I figured they might retire it. Unfortunate for all the staff that work there, it employed quite a few people. RIP Arecibo.

The Arecibo Observatory is not closing. They're only dismantling that structure. They can continue to conduct science there.

The structure holds the instruments through which they conduct science.

Re: Arecibo telescope, on the brink of collapse, will be dismantled

#166

Post by dheera »

floatrock wrote: post #64

The thing was iconic... even if not everyone watching/playing Goldeneye knew it was a real radio telescope, it was nevertheless one of those science megaprojects that featured prominently in the popular zeitgeist and got more than one young kid excited about what's out there in the stars. But infrastructure ages, and 60 years isn't a bad run. What comes next? Clearly there's going to be a capabilities gap for a while…

Random stupid questions from someone who is not a civil engineer:

(a) Why not replace the cables?

(b) What would they do if the cables on the Golden Gate bridge also corroded like this?

Re: Arecibo telescope, on the brink of collapse, will be dismantled

#167

Post by ardy42 »

rmason wrote: post #157
aylmao wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But infrastructure ages, and 60 years isn't a bad run. Infrastructure can also be maintained and last longer than this, which is why I'm personally sad. Had Arecibo always had the ~60 year timeline, it would've been a bittersweet retirement, like Voyager. In this case I just feel like it's gone before it should. Arecibo has been receiving reduced funding since the early 2000s [1]. The end of an era, although thankf…

Wouldn't it be infinitely cheaper to replace all the cables/fixtures and simply rebuild it? Or have the funders simply lost interest in it? Is a GoFundMe campaign outside of the realm of possibility? I know that I'd contribute to such a worthy effort, but only if the rest of the players would pledge to fund current operations.

> Is a GoFundMe campaign outside of the realm of possibility? I know that I'd contribute to such a worthy effort, but only if the rest of the players would pledge to fund current operations.

The biggest GoFundMe campaign according to Wikipedia only raised $25 million in 2020 dollars (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GoFundMe#Notable_projects, Bannon's et al's fraudulent We Build the Wall project). Arecibo cost $9.3 million to build in 1963 dollars (https://ethw.org/Milestones:NAIC/Arecibo_Radiotelescope,_196...), which is about $80 million in 2020 dollars. Even after one-time construction costs, millions in ongoing operating costs and maintenance would be required as well.

So, no, a GoFundMe campaign to rebuild it is not a possibility. Even hot-button political issues can't get close to the needed funds, and this is not ever going to be a hot-button issue.

Re: Arecibo telescope, on the brink of collapse, will be dismantled

#168

Post by ufo »

rmason wrote: post #157
aylmao wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But infrastructure ages, and 60 years isn't a bad run. Infrastructure can also be maintained and last longer than this, which is why I'm personally sad. Had Arecibo always had the ~60 year timeline, it would've been a bittersweet retirement, like Voyager. In this case I just feel like it's gone before it should. Arecibo has been receiving reduced funding since the early 2000s [1]. The end of an era, although thankf…

Wouldn't it be infinitely cheaper to replace all the cables/fixtures and simply rebuild it? Or have the funders simply lost interest in it? Is a GoFundMe campaign outside of the realm of possibility? I know that I'd contribute to such a worthy effort, but only if the rest of the players would pledge to fund current operations.

Unfortunately, I think the article is saying that the telescope is now at a point where decommissioning it in a controlled manner is the only safe option.

Re: Arecibo telescope, on the brink of collapse, will be dismantled

#169

Post by myself248 »

dylan604 wrote: post #121
URfejk wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Give your own money and/or find someone that will invest in the project.

Anybody got the number to SR Hadden?

Why, yes, it would be exquisitely handy to have two such instruments!
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