One of  the funniest segments I ever heard was he was doing an interview with a lady from Hawaii who claimed to have built a time machine.. The interview was maybe 15 minutes or so long because she was unable to really provide and details. In the closing of the interview she agreed to send a picture of her and the device and it was going to be posted the next day on the C2C website... So i check the next day and it showed a woman with a phone cord wrapped around her forehead a few times..lolololol  it was so funny. 

Last night there was a tragic and sad ending to Arecibo when the entire suspended assembly finally crashed down and caused major damage to Arecibo's nearby learning center. It appears that the top sections from the 3 supporting towers gave way and allowed the 900 ton assembly to crash down.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/12/1/21754959/arecibo-observatory-platform-collapse-dish-puerto-rico-telescope

Battlefield 4 map in reality!! Sad, but strangely prophetic as far as the videogame is concerned. 

On 11/19/2020 at 4:02 PM, W2DR said:

Let me get this straight. We could BUILD it safely almost 60 years ago but we can't REPAIR it safely today? Something just doesn't sound right here.

Looks like the engineers were right.

On 11/19/2020 at 10:02 PM, W2DR said:

Let me get this straight. We could BUILD it safely almost 60 years ago
 I'll bet it has more to do with the funding

 What a loss.

The collapse seems to show  that they could not build so safely 60 years ago even if Arecibo was a marvel of engineering. And patching such a gigantic and delicate structure has its limits. 

Not enough money ? Scientific instrumentation has a limited useful life anyway. Better put the public resources in new endeavors like the Webb or the new telescope revolution. 

Old people often shed a tear when they see something they knew all their life as a true accomplishment going to the bin. I sympathise with that. I will shed my own small tear when Hubble is decommissioned. But better decommission Hubble if it is to have the Webb. We say in French the best soup is made in old pots. Not true for science.

For Arecibo, as much as I understand from what I read,  to cut the losses was the sensible way to go. 

Edited December 2, 20205 yr by Dominique_K

5 hours ago, Luke said:

Looks like the engineers were right.

Well, what can I say. I was wrong on this one. But I missed an addition question back in 1947 (second grade math test) so I'm used to getting things not quite right 😁 .

6 hours ago, W2DR said:

Well, what can I say. I was wrong on this one. But I missed an addition question back in 1947 (second grade math test) so I'm used to getting things not quite right 😁 .

I wouldn't say that you're wrong.  The NSF, or some other benefactor, could indeed have repaired or rebuilt the telescope.  The fact is that no one wants to spend the money.

The fact is that Arecibo just isn't that special any more.  Its biggest drawback is its very limited tracking capability.  It can only "see" a small part of the sky at any given moment and is at the mercy of the earth's rotation.  The feed assembly can be positioned to focus incoming radiation from different parts of the collector dish, but that's about it.  Moreover, its frequency range is pretty limited compared to other radio telescopes. 

It was a marvel, and more importantly a useful instrument, for many years.  However, comparatively speaking it just isn't a very useful, powerful instrument any more.  There are other radio telescopes that are much more capable and powerful, such as the Very Large Array, Atacama Array, and Square Kilometer Array.  There's also the huge 500 meter Chinese radio telescope of similar design which is more powerful and sensitive than Arecibo. 

Arecibo would have been decommissioned years ago were it not for a mysterious benefactor who donated a lot of money to keep it going.

Dave

Edited December 2, 20205 yr by dave2013

(Posted in wrong thread, deleted)

But yes, sad to see the telescope collapse.

Edited December 2, 20205 yr by ivng

Video has now been published..

 

 

Wow! What a coincidence that they had the drone up and recording at the time of the final collapse!

In another video, they included some "B Roll" footage of a man inspecting the array during what must have been much happier days. I'll bet they're glad that no one was on the array when it collapsed!

I wonder where the drone operator was located?  Possible change of underwear required...

On 12/2/2020 at 3:59 AM, Dominique_K said:

Old people often shed a tear when they see something they knew all their life as a true accomplishment going to the bin.

True. It broke my heart to have so many old sweaters thrown in the bin by younger women. It's the best thing about younger women: you can't have known 'em all your life... 

YT video that is longer and goes into more depth.