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Communications

US Opts To Not Rebuild Renowned Puerto Rico Telescope (apnews.com) 130

The National Science Foundation announced Thursday that it will not rebuild a renowned radio telescope in Puerto Rico, which was one of the world's largest until it collapsed nearly two years ago. The Associated Press reports: Instead, the agency issued a solicitation for the creation of a $5 million education center at the site that would promote programs and partnerships related to science, technology, engineering and math. It also seeks the implementation of a research and workforce development program, with the center slated to open next year in the northern mountain town of Arecibo where the telescope was once located. The solicitation does not include operational support for current infrastructure at the site that is still in use, including a 12-meter radio telescope or the Lidar facility, which is used to study the upper atmosphere and ionosphere to analyze cloud cover and precipitation data.

The decision was mourned by scientists around the world who used the telescope at the Arecibo Observatory for years to search for asteroids, planets and extraterrestrial life. The 1,000-foot-wide (305-meter-wide) dish also was featured in the Jodie Foster film "Contact" and the James Bond movie "GoldenEye." The reflector dish and the 900-ton platform hanging 450 feet above it previously allowed scientists to track asteroids headed to Earth, conduct research that led to a Nobel Prize and determine if a planet is potentially habitable.
The Arecibo Observatory collapsed in on itself in December 2020, after the telescope suffered two major cable malfunctions in the two months prior. The National Science Foundation released shocking footage of the moment when support cables snapped, causing the massive 900-ton structure suspended above Arecibo to fall onto the observatory's iconic 1,000-foot-wide dish.
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US Opts To Not Rebuild Renowned Puerto Rico Telescope

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  • I really feel this decision reflects a lack of reflection on how much harm this will do to the James Bond franchise. Hopefully, the powers that be will reflect on this.
    • how much harm this will do to the James Bond franchise.

      The Bond franchise should focus on semi-plausible plots instead of more and more absurd super-villains trying to wipe out all life on Earth but forgetting to take away Bond's pen and/or watch.

      • The Bond franchise should focus on semi-plausible plots instead of more and more absurd super-villains trying to wipe out all life on Earth but forgetting to take away Bond's pen and/or watch.

        Why should they focus on something they aren't? If you don't like the story or plots go read / watch something else. The spy genre is huge, let Bond be Bond.

      • You mean turn James Bond into a boring clone of every other spy show ever made by sucking the life out of it? Ok, makes sense of you hate Bond and want to kill the franchise.

        Let's start by taking away all his special gadgets and get rid of all the hot women and make him always operate on a DEI team of uninteresting ransoms instead of being the cool lone wolf. Oh and James can be the trans non binary a-sexual half Black half Arab Chinese one who specializes in anti-white supremacy propaganda.

        I can't wait t

  • by Anonymous Coward

    The US has enough money to support hundreds of military bases around the world, but no money to support one one-of-a-kind observatory.

    When an empire can no longer look forward to invest into the future, instead spent all its efforts to try to trip and hold up other competitors, then it has no future. This century we will see the downfall of an empire, like the British Empire in the past.

  • by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Saturday October 15, 2022 @07:15AM (#62968441) Homepage Journal

    Could have just stopped there. I guarantee you we will throw more money at Florida in a year than we have spent on PR since they got wiped out. Frankly though neither one makes sense, in both cases we should spend the money relocating people and anyone who wants to stay in an ultimately doomed location is welcome to it, but not federal funding. It's going to cost enough to remove them later when they get hit by the next disaster.

    • The people of the state of Florida pay federal income taxes.

      Only federal employees in PR pay income taxes.

      While both stats pay SS and other employee taxes, the average PR income is near third 30k world, while you cannot get anyone to do anything in florida for under 70k.

      Full membership in the club has higher dues and higher privileges. Florida is the keeper of Americas retirees and immigrants. PR is the place where people come from and return to depending on their lot in life and current weather con
      • If it was only that easy. Perhaps it is, but no-one in Washington understands.

      • by cusco ( 717999 )

        Puerto Rico would be an amazingly beautiful place to retire, if it weren't for the hurricanes. Florida on the other hand just plain sucks, except maybe part of the Keys.

      • A referendum approving pursuing statehood was held just 2 years ago. The biggest obstacle now is that the GOP worries that giving statehood to PR would ensure a Democratic majority, not to mention that a large majority of their party is openly hostile to "immigration" and only %43 of U.S citizens know that PR residents already have citizenship.
  • by argStyopa ( 232550 ) on Saturday October 15, 2022 @09:28AM (#62968581) Journal

    The NSF had decided to decommission the telescope a month before it started its catastrophic collapse. This meant that already, it was deemed no longer worth the funds to maintain it. Nobody (I think) expected such a photogenic failure, but that failure mode shouldn't have an impact on the math about the facility.

    Observatories are not sacred sites. Their discoveries should be remembered and celebrated, but the ground they're on isn't Holy. If the cost to run exceeds the benefit, then turn those funds to newer projects and new discoveries, not just repainting the rusted structures from five decades ago.

    • Or start dismantling it and building the new thing that will be worth it. I agree just because we can keep squeezing an orange to get a little more juice out of it doesn't mean it is worth squeezing. Even if we got some really good juice out of it over the years.

    • Observatories are indeed not sacred sites, that is true.

      However, there are no other locations on earth where it was so (relatively) easy and cheap to build such a large dish.

      With cheap I mean shape of the location not needing too much work to enable building such a large dish.

      Rebuilding a new observatory there, perhaps for new fields of research instead of repairing what was there might have been a better idea.

      Handing out a bunch of money isn't much more than hope it results in more science education. Sure,

      • by cusco ( 717999 )

        It's in a radio quiet zone, it was isolated to start with and the island government surrounded the site with a park which prohibited any development nearby. Radio quite zones are getting increasingly difficult to find in these days of always-on connectivity.

        The observatories in Chile have the advantage of being in the middle of the driest desert in the world, besides the the altitude and radio isolation.

    • The NSF had decided to decommission the telescope a month before it started its catastrophic collapse. This meant that already, it was deemed no longer worth the funds to maintain it.

      No. The NSF decided to decommission the telescope *after* it started it's catastrophic collapse. Two cables snapped before the NSF made the decision to decommission the telescope citing in large part the difficulty and danger of attempting to repair the damage.

      Mind you one part of your post rings true. Maintenance of the telescope was underfunded for years so they obviously didn't care about it. But don't attempt to re-write history here. The telescope would not be decommissioned if it weren't for the catas

    • Radio astronomy has come a long way since Arecibo was created. We now have multiple arrays that are more flexible and can also be combined to create effectively Earth-sized radio telescopes. Arecibo only made it as far as it did due to nostalgia.
      • Arecibo made it as far as it did because it was a planetary active radar system, which could snap flash photos of the fucking asteroid belt.

        That's a fairly unique capability to lose. The other one we lose is a great way of looking for potential low-albedo impactors. Arecibo has a unique task in the form of planetary defense work that now falls on the shoulders of the Chinese.
  • If you have ever actually visited Arecibo, you would see that the radio telescope itself has been decaying for decades. Its mission had ended as well. Time for something new and actually relevant to todayâ(TM)s scientific needs.

    The 70â(TM)s and 80â(TM)s defined the purpose for arecibo. It has struggled to find a purpose ever since. Letâ(TM)s let the coquis have it.

  • If the RFP was for a facility/facilities that would provide greater observation and research capabilities, it would have been good. A museum/education center doesn't cut it, especially in such a remote site So much for "Build back better"......
    • Museum so hatchlings can learn about a country that was once great.

      • It's a science museum.

        • Perhaps one of the few on here with a few VLA grants in my past.

          Has anyone looked at the investment the NSF has made in other Radio facilities before going off on supporting one collapsed radio telescope that only could view one swath of the sky. Spending on Steel structures in PR vs Pie Town NM vs Owens Valley CA is a whole different animal. The VLA or CARMA is much more capable telescope at a fraction of the cost year over year. Participation in the iVLA was very limited out of Arecibo Observatory
  • Education center to promote the ideals of equity, inclusion, and diversity.

  • Was a very impressive sight. Our company had a plant in Anasco, and we had to work over the weekend there (We were all from Cali.) Nobody wanted to go cause traffic on that highway was a bitch on Saturdays. I made everyone pile in the rental and we did the drive. It's about a half hour inland into the jungle from the city of Arecibo, which is on the coast. We were driving through the jungle on rainy tight roads, wondering if we were lost. Then we came around a turn, and saw the dish. I won't forget that sig
  • As soon as we realize the need for a large radio telescope, Arecibo will remain near the top of the list for places to put it. Unless something else explicitly occupies the site, rebuilding is always on the table if the need is sufficient.

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