What Really Happened at the Arecibo Telescope?
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Published 2021-07-20
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All Comments (21)
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🚧 When was the first time you heard of Arecibo? 👷 Check out my coverage of other engineering events: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTZM4MrZKfW_kLNg2HZxzCB…
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BF4 Players be like: Ya bud, it’s called levolution and it’s a part of the map.
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The engineers saw it coming and took safety measures, that's extremely commendable.
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I first saw this telescope in Goldeneye, thinking it was just a made-up set to have some cool base for the villain. When I learned that it actually is a real place, I was instantly fascinated and interested in the structure
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Puerto Rican here. I did multiple field trips to the "Radio telescopio de Arecibo" as we called it. One with my school and one with my family just for fun. It was norml to go admire it since it meant so much to us. Even today, if you mention it to a Puerto Rican from the island we think of it with sadness. When it fell it was all anyone could think about. We really did lose an icon.
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You have to admit that this was one of the luckiest drone inspections in history. They were right there, at the right moment, pointing the cameras in the precise point of failure. This is precious footage for investigations and to show how this kind of failure happens in real life.
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The engineers who established the safe zones, and recommended the structure be demolished so that they wouldn't risk lives on futile attempts to save it, should be honored. They very likely saved numerous lives with their assessment and education.
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I remember seeing news of the collapse. At the time, I thought it had just been allowed to deteriorate because it was obsolete. I'm both gratified and sad to know that was not the case.
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My grandfather was an engineer, he helped build and maintain the Arecibo Observatory. For many years he was in charge of changing out the line feeds to change frequencies. He worked many years on that thing. I should ask him how he feels about it collapsing.
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It's really crazy how accurate the DICE team was at recreating it and even the damage after the receiver fell in game
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-"For England, James?" -"No, for Me."
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I respect that they decided to keep the crews’ safety in mind as the top priority, that’s very commendable
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In early 2000's I was involved in the SETI project, thus I was well aware of Arecibo. When we visited PR for a cruise arond 2015, we went in a few days early and took a tour of the facility. It was very impressive!
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From Grady’s description of the situation, the question in my mind is not “why did it fall?” but “how on Earth did it stay up as long as it did?” Low safety margins, unique design, constant exposure to salt air and tropical sun, frequent hurricanes, and in at least one case, shoddy workmanship. It seems that receiver was staying up there mostly from force of habit.
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"These steel cables were installed 70 years ago, they are perfectly safe." As someone who worked in preventative maintenance for a decade, I don't trust anything that hasn't had a major inspection or overhaul after X amount of hours, let alone DECADES.
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I have been to Arecibo twice. There were a number of objects including comets that were studied. It was very impressive.
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I’ve been fascinated with the structure since Golden Eye. Sad to see go, awesome it was captured on film at the moment of failure.
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As a child of the 50s, this facility was a scientific icon. A source of national pride. It was every bit as important as the space race in those respects. Such a shame to see it meet such a tragic end.
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“What really happened?” Simple, a Recon player over the course of 10 minutes placed and demolished each of the supporting wires using his C4
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Your commentary is so precise and scrupulously honest, Grady. Your values are in themselves a great inspiration and example to up and coming engineers. Thank you!
