The end of the line for the Arecibo radio telescope

[BravoV]

Maintenance is a rubber band which can be indefinitely stretched a small bit at a time by management and politics.

Problem is, thing like these (and as many others) need much-much more longer time (decades ?) for the commitment and support, far more than just 4 or 8 years of elected governmental administration, which we all see & experience, that sometimes can turn up side down 180 degrees in just 4 years.

[MadTux]

Yep, just for the look, ... or .. maybe hiding the rust. 

Painting cables is a dumb idea, whether it's rust or fretting. With paint, lube can't go in there and the cables can't move along each other. So they will rub against each other which causes fretting. Fretted surface likely starts corrosion and cracks so wire snaps. If the wire strands are locked in place, they also can't move along each other to share load, so some wires get higher stresses than others, until they yield and eventually break. With nough broken single wires, the whole cable snaps.

[Marco]

Couldn't you build a radio telescope in the same way as a heliostat concentrating solar power plant? An a simple planar array of reflectors, but all concentrating on a single receiver.

[BravoV]

Yep, just for the look, ... or .. maybe hiding the rust. 

Painting cables is a dumb idea, whether it's rust or fretting. With paint, lube can't go in there and the cables can't move along each other. So they will rub against each other which causes fretting. Fretted surface likely starts corrosion and cracks so wire snaps. If the wire strands are locked in place, they also can't move along each other to share load, so some wires get higher stresses than others, until they yield and eventually break. With nough broken single wires, the whole cable snaps.

+1

[fourfathom]

Couldn't you build a radio telescope in the same way as a heliostat concentrating solar power plant? An a simple planar array of reflectors, but all concentrating on a single receiver.

All the reflections need to arrive at the detector in phase, which would not be the case with a planar array.  If each reflector has it's own detector (as is the case with multi-dish arrays), then phases of the individual detected signals can be adjusted electronically to focus and steer the antenna beam pattern.

Heliostat's don't much care about phase-coherence.

[coppercone2]

cables are made by drawing them through this thick grease stuff. Its inside the cable, that won't paint well at all. I know in a garage door you should use cable lubricant once in a while, so the strands do not rub on each other and tear each other up, as a maintenance procedure (sold as chain and cable lube). I am guessing that it is meant to be formulated as not to draw the grease that is inside the cable from the manufacturer out.

I don't know what you are supposed to do for giant cables. Probably replace them once in a while.

[Marco]

All the reflections need to arrive at the detector in phase, which would not be the case with a planar array.

Oops, of course. Hmm, you could have a couple intermediate reflectors to add a bit of selectable phase delay Getting a bit too complex I guess.

[CatalinaWOW]

The lead architect of Arecibo, Dr. William Gordon was one of department professors at University.  If this is to be rebuilt there will have to be a similar champion who defines the benefits, outlines the plan and chases the funding.  The Arecibo telescope was actually a cost saving approach to achieving the science goals.  (Initially probing the properties of the atmosphere.  Which had military application though it isn't clear to me that that was Dr. Gordon's interest.)

[RoGeorge]

I think a rebuild is out of the question.

If there wasn't enough interest (or enough money) to maintain the former telescope, why (or how to) build a new one?

[Kleinstein]

The unique feature the old arecibo installation offered was the radar capability to measure the orbit of asteroids. It is not just the receive part but also the send part. It would absolutely make sense to get back that capability to a similar range. Not sure the arecibo location is the best choice (e.g. chance of earth quakes and hurricanes, high humidity), but it still has some benefits, like much of the infrastructure and ground work already there.

The money argument is somewhat valid. The costs for a rebuild would not be that high compared to other large science projects or space missions. Chances are maintenance would be cheaper, at least for the first few years after a rebuild. It would anyway take some time for new plans - chances are the new one would not be identical.
There may be alternatives, like adding radar capability to one of the arrays made from multiple smaller dishes.

[CJay]

I think a rebuild is out of the question.

If there wasn't enough interest (or enough money) to maintain the former telescope, why (or how to) build a new one?

I think that's about the reality of it, if there wasn't money to maintain it then there won't be any money for a rebuild unless it proves to be of military significance.

[CatalinaWOW]

That is why a champion is required.  Someone who can beat the halls of power looking for money.  Who can define why it is important for each of the money sources.  Someone with the imagination to sell naming rights.  Someone who can articulate the economic benefits to Puerto Rico.  The scientific bragging right benefits to various patriotic organizations.  The educational benefits of tying this in to STEM education.  The ecological benefits of a protected zone under and around the antenna.  Someone who doesn't recoil at military money if there is some benefit in that direction.  Someone who doesn't want to mail an anonymous grant request and hope that money flows back.

If there aren't sufficient reasons to rebuild it shouldn't be.  It would be a shame if the reasons are there, but it isn't rebuilt because no one can be found who can articulate and champion the cause.  Replacement is a bigger job than maintenance, but I suspect the maintenance failed because there was no such champion.  Champions for maintenance are hard to come by, few find it stimulating.  But even someone willing to highlight what in retrospect is known would have probably done the trick.  I suspect stories about how you could hear strands snapping long before the failures occurred would have been vivid enough to spring maintenance dollars free,  particularly if they had been combined with drone pictures and audio recordings.

[CJay]

That is why a champion is required.  Someone who can beat the halls of power looking for money.  Who can define why it is important for each of the money sources.  Someone with the imagination to sell naming rights.  Someone who can articulate the economic benefits to Puerto Rico.  The scientific bragging right benefits to various patriotic organizations.  The educational benefits of tying this in to STEM education.  The ecological benefits of a protected zone under and around the antenna.  Someone who doesn't recoil at military money if there is some benefit in that direction.  Someone who doesn't want to mail an anonymous grant request and hope that money flows back.

If there aren't sufficient reasons to rebuild it shouldn't be.  It would be a shame if the reasons are there, but it isn't rebuilt because no one can be found who can articulate and champion the cause.  Replacement is a bigger job than maintenance, but I suspect the maintenance failed because there was no such champion.  Champions for maintenance are hard to come by, few find it stimulating.  But even someone willing to highlight what in retrospect is known would have probably done the trick.  I suspect stories about how you could hear strands snapping long before the failures occurred would have been vivid enough to spring maintenance dollars free,  particularly if they had been combined with drone pictures and audio recordings.

I wonder now the Chinese and Japanese have both launched and run highly complex and successful space missions if there might be an impetus for the US to 'compete' and thus a case to be made from that?

[coppercone2]

its probobly related to stealth technology developments, hardware like this and world class researchers going there will bolster RF stealth and detection stuff most likely. Maybe its been milked to completion by the military and all they can hope to do is play catch up when the cutting edge game is being played on another field.

They keep pounding that USA#1 stealth all the time. You probobly need better hardware now to get any benefits for the MIC with the research that has been accumulated, and you can't exactly fly planes in front of it or test it on satellites if its being used by civilians because then someone would know exactly what you are doing. All you can do is prevent mingling between top minds, but the internet makes access control kind of a moot point since this thing was made in the 60's with different communications methods.

I think the #1 utility is it being used for asteroids, say a not so friendly country not mentioning some asteroid that is likely to hit some hemisphere that they don't really like as promptly as possible. Or just being able to verify information to make sure someones projections are correct. It had a interesting fact checking capability. To test planes? with it you would need to turn the place into another area 51. The last thing you need is good relations to let scientists in to study a meteor heading towards earth.. each country should have its own.


And its a utterly horrible place to test stealth things because its right next to the water, making it easy for a submarine or ship to spy on the sky there. And the 'black security forces' look like the villians in any james bond movie with ships if they were to be at sea.

[CatalinaWOW]

Clearly since the funding sources mentioned here run from the military on through the military this thread isn't the source of the imagination to get it rebuilt.  Though maybe it shouldn't be.  In a few years we can hire the Starship to loft a 3 km mylar balloon, aluminized on one side that would be the reflector for a fully steerable dish.

[coppercone2]

I have a feeling that a giant mylar balloon will be less reliable then this telescope for some reason

filled with h2 for budgetary reasons? 

That is going to end up looking like that scene from the movie 'red planet' where the fungus catches on fire

What I think now is that you can get some high quality roofing out of all those panels. If you make jigs and stuff you can probobly remake like 1/2 of the bottom structure with panel beating, sanding and welding using medium low skill labor. Worlds largest body shop effort. Where are the Eastwood automotive and Miller metal working company sponsorships? Maybe they can put a lincoln electric logo on it like a race car if they supply some tools and materials. Seen from orbital telescopes and planes

[CatalinaWOW]

I have a feeling that a giant mylar balloon will be less reliable then this telescope for some reason

filled with h2 for budgetary reasons? 

Fill it with H2.  H2 + vacuum => bad vacuum but no combustion.

You would use the Starship to launch your balloon into a beyond synchronous orbit for several reasons.  Avoid occluding communications satellites in synchronous orbit.  Avoid atmospheric drag and debris problems in lower orbits.  And by keeping the subtense low you minimize impact on earthbound observations. 

Small thrusters, or possibly large gyros rotate the thing around so it can point anywhere, something Arecibo couldn't do and the Chinese one can't either.  You could use perhaps 2/3 of the aperture without too much spherical aberration.

But on your point an army of metal beaters can build ground based alumimum mirrors for RF.  Even higher frequency stuff if you give them the time and tools to do the job.  But even third world wages add up.  And the logistics of allocating panel shapes and interfaces to thousands of small shops would be an interesting problem.  But the idea has merit because it is a hook to get funding from large NGO aide organizations.  Wages, plus skills development, plus infrastructure development are all good carrots.

There are very few ideas crazy enough to throw out.  The only question is which ones will develop the army to implement.   Look back at cell phones.  Think about the initial pitch.  "We want to make a radio network that requires transmitters and receivers with 12 km spacing over the entire inhabited world.  And build millions of the most complex radios that anyone can imagine.  Why?  So teenage girls can gab with their friends endlessly and lonely people can post pictures of cats."  Sounds pretty crazy doesn't it.

[coppercone2]

they almost destroyed space though with things like project west ford

i mean they can literary destroy space. Someone thought that all the people talking makes propaganda and demonizing harder so they are less likely to eradicate a country because of some memos.

PR could develop the 'iron triangle' for weird manually made reflectors and such, they have good access to water for shipping too.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willets_Point,_Queens

They used to do it for 1/15th the money insurance gave you to do a simple job. Maybe it would work because those RF projects are all heavily bureaucratized so they can deal with a massive delay. Takes about a week for someone to scratch their ass.

Probably better for them to develop trade skills and work for goverment money then to have that aluminum come back to haunt us in fake car hoods. mm 10$ car hood made with NASA parts and alumiweld rods. Given what I see going on with car tire markets (i.e. phillipines) its probobly gonna be turned into car parts.

[BravoV]

I think a rebuild is out of the question.

If there wasn't enough interest (or enough money) to maintain the former telescope, why (or how to) build a new one?

I think that's about the reality of it, if there wasn't money to maintain it then there won't be any money for a rebuild unless it proves to be of military significance.

Even there is a money and interest, whats the point ? The whole Puerto Rico island was destroyed by hurricane Maria 3 years ago is still abandoned by mainland federal government with no help what so ever, the basic and major infrastructure still heavily damaged, the money better use to help these poor people 1st, and a telescope has much lower priority.

Unless those Puerto Ricans are 2nd grade US citizen. Just read this carefully -> Reference

Its like watching a poor African countries that is still struggling on basic need, but want to build rocket to send their astronaut to the moon. 

[Kleinstein]

The arecibo installation was more than just a big dish an receiver. The special feature was the ability also to actively send.  A large dish in space may be possible, but transmission in the MW power range would be hard from space.
The radar capability is, what is needed to get accurate orbital data for asteroids. Not sure how good one could add a powerful send part to existing radio telescopes.

There may have been some military (space flight related)  use in the initial phase, for upper atmospheric studies, but this should by now be mainly finished and common knowledge. The atmospheric studies are more like helping understand climate change and effects of pollution.
The military does not need such a dish any more.

Compared to space missions rebuilding the dish would be relatively cheap. The tricky part could be more  like getting the funding for the ongoing costs, so we don't get the next collapse by 2050. A chance would be if NASA decides to forgets about maned space missions - lots of money to set free.

[CJay]

Even there is a money and interest, whats the point ? The whole Puerto Rico island was destroyed by hurricane Maria 3 years ago is still abandoned by mainland federal government with no help what so ever, the basic and major infrastructure still heavily damaged, the money better use to help these poor people 1st, and a telescope has much lower priority.

Unless those Puerto Ricans are 2nd grade US citizen. Just read this carefully -> Reference

Its like watching a poor African countries that is still struggling on basic need, but want to build rocket to send their astronaut to the moon. 

I agree, looking in from the outside, talking to relatives and friends in the US, the 'American dream' looks like a nightmare for an awful lot of people and it all stems from a basic lack of humanity in the belief that, to quote a fictional character, "greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right. Greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit."

[magic]

"American dream" boils down to the concept that it's viable to relinquish responsibility for "your world" and live comfortably in "a better world".
People who emigrate to Western countries will never learn

[CJay]

"American dream" boils down to the concept that it's viable to relinquish responsibility for "your world" and live comfortably in "a better world".
People who emigrate to Western countries will never learn

There's nothing wrong with wanting better but it goes wrong when you want your own life to be better at the expense of others and that happens in every country.

[Ian.M]

Before the Arecibo site could be reused, there's a lot of work to be done scrapping the failed platform, and probably the reflector, though some of it may be salvageable.   However its all near-ground so wont require more than ordinary heavy plant to do so, and could be undertaken with local labor, which would obviously benefit the local community.

If a rebuild was funded internationally by a coalition of universities and other academic bodies its likely the funding would be more stable than if it relied on US government funding subject to short-term political pressures. 

[coppercone2]

the only way you can screw up local labor is have them work unsafe on a rich foreign project (don't pull a stadium job)