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Goodbye, Arecibo!

That's too bad. What a fixture of our lives. I wonder if they could just pull it down and try to salvage piece by piece.
 
Spinward Scout said:
That's too bad. What a fixture of our lives. I wonder if they could just pull it down and try to salvage piece by piece.
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yea, it's too bad.

But at the same time, we shouldn't be remiss in noting that our modern capabilities are far better than what Arecibo could do, so while it's a shame that it's being dismantled, we aren't necessarily losing capability.
 
whartung said:
yea, it's too bad.

But at the same time, we shouldn't be remiss in noting that our modern capabilities are far better than what Arecibo could do, so while it's a shame that it's being dismantled, we aren't necessarily losing capability.
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No, not really. NASA has stated that there really isn't a facility with the kind of capabilities Aricebo had - and none are currently planned that can make up for its loss.

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/nasa-statement-on-nsf-s-planned-controlled-decommissioning-of-arecibo-radio-telescope
The planetary radar capability at Arecibo, funded by NASA’s Near-Earth Object (NEO) Observations Program, has served as one of two major planetary radar capabilities.

It has allowed NASA to fully characterize the precise orbits, sizes, and shapes of some NEOs passing within radar range after they are discovered by wide-field optical telescope survey projects.
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http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=56606
Cornell-Designed Arecibo Telescope an "Inestimable Loss"

Arecibo was also the premier solar system radar facility in the world, and it was well funded by NASA to allow precise orbital motion studies of near-Earth asteroids, according to Campbell. “This is a big loss for tracking them,” he said. “Arecibo could determine the size, shape and rotation of near-Earth asteroids, and provide much more accurate predictions of their future orbits than can be obtained using optical telescopes alone.”
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Sad to see it go. And there was loss of capacity:

Here's how planetary scientist Ed Rivera-Valentin described one aspect of Arecibo's importance earlier this year, on NPR's Short Wave podcast:

"One of the really neat things about the Arecibo Observatory is that it's a very versatile scientific instrument. Most telescopes, most radio telescopes, don't have the ability to send out light. They only capture light. At the observatory, we can send and capture light. When an asteroid's coming by, we are pretty much a flashlight that we turn on. We send radar out to it, and that radar comes back. ... We can tell you how far these objects are down to a few meters.

"And we care about where these asteroids are going to be because what if, one day, this thing comes around and gets too close to Earth? But if we can let people know this is going to happen next year, we can actually prepare for it. Like, the dinosaurs — they didn't have a space program, so they didn't get to prepare for anything."
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MI-6 was able to cover up the incident and had it rebuilt before anybody was the wiser, probably with help from the CIA. And the Illuminati. Now if only those slacker-hipster social media bazillionaires would follow suit.
 
Straybow said:
MI-6 was able to cover up the incident and had it rebuilt before anybody was the wiser, probably with help from the CIA. And the Illuminati. Now if only those slacker-hipster social media bazillionaires would follow suit.
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I doubt it was ever used as a numbers station.
 
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