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RIP Arecibo Radio Telescope

Arecibo News Media | National Science Foundation

National Science Foundation on Twitter: "The instrument platform of the 305m telescope at Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico fell overnight. ..." / Twitter
The instrument platform of the 305m telescope at Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico fell overnight. No injuries were reported. NSF is working with stakeholders to assess the situation. Our top priority is maintaining safety. NSF will release more details when they are confirmed.

NSF is saddened by this development. As we move forward, we will be looking for ways to assist the scientific community and maintain our strong relationship with the people of Puerto Rico.

La plataforma del radiotelescopio de 305 metros del Observatorio de Arecibo en Puerto Rico cayó durante la noche de ayer. No se reportaron heridos. La Fundación Nacional para la Ciencia (@NSF) está trabajando con las partes interesadas para evaluar la situación actual. -- The platform of the 305-meter radio telescope at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico fell overnight yesterday. No injuries were reported. The National Science Foundation (@NSF) is working with stakeholders to assess the current situation.

Nuestra prioridad principal es mantener la seguridad y daremos a conocer detalles adicionales una vez confirmados. -- Our top priority is to maintain security and we will release additional details once confirmed.

La Fundación Nacional para la Ciencia (@NSF, por sus siglas en inglés) lamenta lo ocurrido. A medida que avancemos, encontraremos formas de ayudar a la comunidad científica y mantener nuestra sólida relación con el pueblo de Puerto Rico. -- The National Science Foundation (@NSF, for its acronym in English) regrets what happened. As we move forward, we will find ways to help the scientific community and maintain our strong relationship with the people of Puerto Rico.
 
The reply "Many of us are not in the US. When it comes to measuring stuff, China is not the weird kid who doesn't with the rest of the class, you are." is also an accusation of wrongful behavior:

That is not an accusation, it is a concatenation of two accurate factual claims: That many of us are not in the US (which is true), and that globally, the US rather than China is weird when it comes to measuring stuff (which is also true). Anything you or Treedbear chose to read into it on top of that is your problem, not mine.

you are doubling down on the implication that he ought to have used metric units.

You even said
Jokodo said:
Sure, we don't have such an obligation. However, when writing on a science topic in an international forum, it is prudent to use the terminology science-minded people internationally are most likely to understand - which is the metric system. A mitigating factor would be if the object described is in a hold-out using a non-metric system of measurement.
You implied he failed to be prudent (i.e., he was imprudent) for using the imperial system.

Chronology matters. This comment came long after I was attacked for, effectively, mentioning that the metric system exists - after it was alleged that I "cannot tolerate inconsistencies in [my] world view" and told to put people on ignore.
 
Absolutely they should replace this. And my opinion is that the replacement should be bigger and better than the original. This is a huge loss to science, and I would be willing to contribute to the cost of the replacement.

Ruth
 
NSF releases footage from the moment Arecibo’s cables failed | Ars Technica - "Two different cameras, with one capturing a close-up of the cables snapping."
The video of that collapse comes from a monitoring system put in place in the wake of the cable failures. Due to the danger of further cable breaks, the NSF had instituted no-go zones around each of the three towers that supported the cables. With no personnel allowed to get close enough to inspect the cables, the staff started monitoring them using daily drone flights, one of which was in progress during the collapse. In addition, a video camera was installed on top of the visitor's center, which had a clear view of the instrument platform and one of the support towers.

As you can see from the video, the drone was examining the area where the cables looped over the support towers. Specifically, it was examining the tower that had supported the one main cable that had failed earlier—note that one of the gaps that the cables pass through is unoccupied. While it was filming, individual wires in the cable started snapping, and the cable failed completely shortly afterward. The remaining connection visible there, which was connected to the scientific instrumentation, survived a bit longer before the plunging platform pulled it apart.

In the second segment of video, the view from the visitor's center shows how the failure of the cables at that tower affected the rest of the system. With one of the three support anchors gone, the instrument platform dropped toward the dish in between the remaining two. This created off-axis forces that caused the tops of those towers to be wrenched off the rest, resulting in about 60 feet of reinforced concrete plunging to the ground below. At the same time, backstay cables that ran from the tower to the ground came loose and swung around wildly.
After mentioning plans to keep the center platform from falling,
While these plans were being evaluated, the telescope's operators started monitoring the cables using a drone in order to avoid putting humans at risk. Over the past weekend, Zauderer said, the drone footage had revealed several individual wires in the cables snapping, and she implied that this meant that everyone knew a collapse was inevitable.
Then the question of rebuilding it. It will require Congress allocating some money for that, and the big problem there is that the Arecibo telescope will compete with several other telescope proposals. A big problem for Arecibo is that several smaller dishes wired together may be more cost-effective for much of what it did. Like the Very Large Array in New Mexico.
 
Jokodo said:
Angra Mainyu said:
The reply "Many of us are not in the US. When it comes to measuring stuff, China is not the weird kid who doesn't with the rest of the class, you are." is also an accusation of wrongful behavior:

That is not an accusation, it is a concatenation of two accurate factual claims: That many of us are not in the US (which is true), and that globally, the US rather than China is weird when it comes to measuring stuff (which is also true). Anything you or Treedbear chose to read into it on top of that is your problem, not mine.
You are leaving aside the context that I explained: it's what comes after the ":", namely that you are doubling down on the implication that he ought to have used metric units.


It's not that I choose to read something that is not there. You were implying from the beginning that he ought to have used metric units, i.e., that there was something wrong with his behavior. I mean, surely, when you said "I'm pretty sure they don't measure it in feet in China.", you did not mean to merely make a statement about your beliefs and degree of certainty. You meant to tell him that he was doing something wrong (Of course, it is irrelevant what sort of measurement they use in China. Imagine this: in a thread about traffic laws, someone says the top speed in some road in Kansas is about 88 kph, and someone replies "I'm pretty sure they do not measure speed in kph in Kansas").

The reply about the "weird kid" has to be read in that context.


Jokodo said:
Chronology matters. This comment came long after I was attacked for, effectively, mentioning that the metric system exists - after it was alleged that I "cannot tolerate inconsistencies in [my] world view" and told to put people on ignore.
First, you were not attacked for mentioning that the metric system exists. Rather, you were implicitly accused of wrongdoing for implicitly accusing Treedbear of wrongdoing for using the imperial system and not the metric system. Treedbear perhaps was hasty in assessing the reason why you engaged in that accusation. But it was definitely not for mentioning the metric system exists, which had already been mentioned in the OP, with no conflict.

Second, chronology matters with regards to some matters, and it does not matter with regards to some other matters. In particular, it does not matter in this case, regardless of whether you were attacked for "effectively, mentioning that the metric system exists". The reason is that in this later comment, you implied that Treedbear was imprudent for using the imperial system (and refraining to use the metric system, to be more precise), not that he was imprudent for something he did afterwards, in reply to one of your posts. Your later reply further provides evidence of what you intended to do in your first one - though, it was rather obvious; see above.
 
Puerto Rico commits $8 million to rebuild Arecibo telescope | Engadget
There’s a glimmer of hope for the collapsed Arecibo Observatory telescope as 2020 draws to a close. El Nuevo Dia reports that Puerto Rico Governor Wanda Vázquez has signed an executive order approving $8 million to help rebuild the radio telescope. Its reconstruction is important as a matter of “public policy” and reestablishing the Observatory as a “world-class educational center,” the Governor’s office said.
8 million approved to rebuild the Arecibo Observatory Telescope - El Nuevo Día
The executive order states that the reconstruction of the Arecibo Observatory radio telescope is “a matter of public policy”.

“The government of Puerto Rico is convinced that the collapse of the radio telescope brings a great opportunity to redesign it taking into consideration the lessons learned and the recommendations from the scientific community to make it relevant for decades,” said Vázquez Garced, through La Fortaleza’s official website.

She said the $8 million should cover the removal and disposal of debris and the design of the new radio telescope.
Gobernadora Wanda Vázquez Garced firma Orden Ejecutiva para establecer como política pública la reconstrucción del Observatorio de Arecibo | La Fortaleza - in Spanish
 
Preliminary investigation offers possible cause of Arecibo Observatory telescope collapse | Space
Simultaneously, two forensic investigations are evaluating what caused the telescope's collapse. One investigation focuses on the so-called auxiliary cables. These 12 cables were added in the 1990s, when the observatory installed the massive hanging dome that distinguishes the telescope's appearance in the movie "Contact" from its previous cameo in James Bond's "GoldenEye." The first cable to fail was one of these auxiliary cables, which slipped out of its socket where it connected to one of the three supporting towers surrounding the dish.

"Preliminary investigation has revealed that there was a manufacturing error in those cables — in particular, the socketing procedure wasn't done appropriately, and that led to advanced degradation of that particular structural element," Cordova said. "But the final forensics investigation is still to be completed."

A second forensic investigation focuses on the main cables, which are original to the telescope's construction in the early 1960s. It was one of these main cables that snapped in November, despite engineers' estimates that it was only carrying about 60% of the weight it should have been able to withstand.
 
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