Arecibo to be mothballed?

[PB666]

http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2016/06/04/uncertain-future-for-earths-biggest-telescope/?mwhe=1

 

[StrandedonEarth]

Why in the name of Kod would they close such a facility? Oh, right, money. $12M per year is chump change on government scales.

[ModZero]

Aw. I don't consider myself equipped to thinking if that's the right decision (deciding things 'like' NSF should have more money is easy, whether a 47-year old telescope is still the best way to spend 12 mil - not so much), but Arecibo is quite symbolic. It would be really sad to see it go, on a purely emotional level.

 

[SciMan]

It may be 47 years old, but it's still a really huge radio antenna. The parts that make it a really huge radio antenna aren't the parts that get outdated.

The parts that get outdated are the radio receivers and/or feed-horns at the focus of the dish. The dish itself (including cables to support equipment at the focus) doesn't go obsolete. It might become structurally unsound, but that's a different thing entirely.

I'd say refitting it with more modern radio equipment would be a good idea, if it hasn't been done already.

Mothballing this kind of facility makes no sense to me, and constructing something of similar capability "again" would require significantly more than 12 million.

[wumpus]

Maybe the boom & controls might have some cost to replace.  To put some perspective on the cost of the antenna + radio equipment, SETI@home built its own copy of the radio equipment and put it on the boom's counterweight.  It would then pick up various parts from the sky, although something like the opposite end of the sky of whatever the radio astronomer of the day was looking at.

I'm guessing US politics.