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This is the kind of thing I always hope that one of the billionaire nerds will help with. Seems right up Elon Musk's alley.
Eh, does it? I've never heard of Elon Musk being interested in space science, only space business. An observatory doesn't make shareholders any money.
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No, it's a reflection of the state of US infrastructure.
Which is also a symbol of the degradation of human intellectual capability in the 21st century. Certainly the ability to focus it toward advancing the understanding of the natural world.
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all of that money, plus a thousand times more.
Yes, of course it costs more, just as that telescope costs way more than the one I have at home.
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?
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I'm sure you could trade a handful of Patriot missiles and one or two F-35's to fund it several times over.
Quick and probably very inaccurate calculation Arecibo cost $9.3 million in 1963. This is equal to $79,000,000 now ( https://www.in2013dollars.com/us/inflation/1963?amount=93000... ). An F-35 costs about $100 million. Based on that, I'd be happy to give up a single F-35 to rebuild Arecibo.
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…
> 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…
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 because of spending decisions.
I do believe that we are getting less than we used to for the spend, but it’s clear that it’s not budget cuts that are responsible: rather, it’s the productivity of science is falling, and so is efficiency of the government, despite growing expenditures.
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Whose money are you volunteering to be spent on that?
I don’t get the flagging, it’s a very valid question. I’m sure the people at PR would rather see the money invested on infrastructure with higher impact on their citizens life.
In the past hour I've only been seeing people from the island lament this. Twitter, Facebook, Reddit.
I think a lot of people understand that not spending the money on this doesn't mean that that money will appear somewhere else.
The rest, I'm pretty sure that if you tell them that there's different buckets where money comes from and that money simply won't shift into others, would quickly say repair/rebuild it.
There's a sense of pride with the radio telescope. I can only speak for what I've seen, but a lot of people visit on school field trips. We all know it.
This sucks.
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…
> 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…
I remember as a child some kids' show taking us down to the dish as we cruise around and under the huge thing in the jungle. Thought it was one of the coolest things I had ever seen. I can't believe this legend is all going to be discarded.