| General > General Technical Chat |
| The end of the line for the Arecibo radio telescope |
| << < (22/29) > >> |
| 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:
--- Quote from: fourfathom on December 04, 2020, 03:51:40 pm ---All the reflections need to arrive at the detector in phase, which would not be the case with a planar array. --- End quote --- 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. |
| Navigation |
| Message Index |
| Next page |
| Previous page |