Arecibo collapse
December 3, 2020 9:24 AM Subscribe
Arecibo observatory collapse video footage Incredibly a drone was conducting a remote inspection of the Arecibo observatory support cables at the exact moment it collapsed. (video on twitter)
It'll buff out.
posted by Wordshore at 9:33 AM on December 3, 2020 [9 favorites]
posted by Wordshore at 9:33 AM on December 3, 2020 [9 favorites]
I feel like the drone taking a look up at the horizon for a moment after the snap was like a fourth-wall breaking "are you seeing this shit?"
posted by seanmpuckett at 9:44 AM on December 3, 2020 [7 favorites]
posted by seanmpuckett at 9:44 AM on December 3, 2020 [7 favorites]
.
posted by saturday_morning at 9:46 AM on December 3, 2020
posted by saturday_morning at 9:46 AM on December 3, 2020
Sort of a nice bit of metaphor on US science generally.
...meanwhile, FAST opened last January.
posted by aramaic at 9:46 AM on December 3, 2020 [11 favorites]
...meanwhile, FAST opened last January.
posted by aramaic at 9:46 AM on December 3, 2020 [11 favorites]
Maybe the downdraft from the drone was the final straw...
Yeah, it is a huge shame that such an important observatory was allowed to fail like this.
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:47 AM on December 3, 2020 [4 favorites]
Yeah, it is a huge shame that such an important observatory was allowed to fail like this.
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:47 AM on December 3, 2020 [4 favorites]
Meh. It looked better in Goldeneye. You can’t even make out Sean Bean in this one.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 9:59 AM on December 3, 2020 [5 favorites]
posted by ricochet biscuit at 9:59 AM on December 3, 2020 [5 favorites]
Someone needs to check with England to see if their Double-O program had anything to do with it.
Just another piece of the Republican Party's legacy. So sad to see this.
posted by Chuffy at 10:00 AM on December 3, 2020 [6 favorites]
Just another piece of the Republican Party's legacy. So sad to see this.
posted by Chuffy at 10:00 AM on December 3, 2020 [6 favorites]
Wow.
I am very fond of Arecibo. One of my beloved mentors spent most of their life making it work and I have many colleagues who've observed there. I'm not entirely convinced that it's a bad thing to let it go, at least if we put the same effort into contemporary long-wavelength facilities. Unique and historic are interesting properties, but may not be the most important ones when allocating science spending, assuming a fixed budget.
.
posted by eotvos at 10:04 AM on December 3, 2020 [9 favorites]
I am very fond of Arecibo. One of my beloved mentors spent most of their life making it work and I have many colleagues who've observed there. I'm not entirely convinced that it's a bad thing to let it go, at least if we put the same effort into contemporary long-wavelength facilities. Unique and historic are interesting properties, but may not be the most important ones when allocating science spending, assuming a fixed budget.
.
posted by eotvos at 10:04 AM on December 3, 2020 [9 favorites]
We had a thread just a couple weeks ago about the previous damage and decision to decommission Arecibo; people clicking into this thread might also be interested in that one.
posted by LobsterMitten at 10:09 AM on December 3, 2020 [7 favorites]
posted by LobsterMitten at 10:09 AM on December 3, 2020 [7 favorites]
Ever since this came out I've been struggling to understand how we got here. This seemed like an important piece of infrastructure to study the stars and it was just left to degrade? Was there not enough money? Not enough oversight? How do you let things get to this point. It's such a shame.
posted by Carillon at 10:09 AM on December 3, 2020 [4 favorites]
posted by Carillon at 10:09 AM on December 3, 2020 [4 favorites]
On the bright side, I guess the person who was inspecting the cables had a pretty easy report to write up afterward
posted by Skwirl at 10:10 AM on December 3, 2020 [10 favorites]
posted by Skwirl at 10:10 AM on December 3, 2020 [10 favorites]
Are you a fan of deferred maintenance and institutional neglect? Your bowl runneth over!
posted by Jessica Savitch's Coke Spoon at 10:11 AM on December 3, 2020 [3 favorites]
posted by Jessica Savitch's Coke Spoon at 10:11 AM on December 3, 2020 [3 favorites]
Your bowl runneth over!
Not with a hole like that in it, it won't.
posted by Stoneshop at 10:18 AM on December 3, 2020 [7 favorites]
Not with a hole like that in it, it won't.
posted by Stoneshop at 10:18 AM on December 3, 2020 [7 favorites]
The report afterwards if written by an Australian:
"Yeah mate, that's fucking fucked."
posted by happyinmotion at 10:26 AM on December 3, 2020 [3 favorites]
"Yeah mate, that's fucking fucked."
posted by happyinmotion at 10:26 AM on December 3, 2020 [3 favorites]
From the other thread LobsterMitten mentioned:
the NSF will decommission the telescope, concluding with a controlled disassembly.
How's "uncontrolled" work for you?
posted by Greg_Ace at 10:29 AM on December 3, 2020 [4 favorites]
the NSF will decommission the telescope, concluding with a controlled disassembly.
How's "uncontrolled" work for you?
posted by Greg_Ace at 10:29 AM on December 3, 2020 [4 favorites]
Besides Goldeneye, Arecibo also appears in Contact and Species.
posted by oulipian at 10:37 AM on December 3, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by oulipian at 10:37 AM on December 3, 2020 [1 favorite]
This is our generation's Tacoma Narrows Bridge collapse.
posted by PhineasGage at 10:46 AM on December 3, 2020 [4 favorites]
posted by PhineasGage at 10:46 AM on December 3, 2020 [4 favorites]
Damn. 2020, y'all.
posted by gwint at 11:04 AM on December 3, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by gwint at 11:04 AM on December 3, 2020 [1 favorite]
Ever since this came out I've been struggling to understand how we got here. This seemed like an important piece of infrastructure to study the stars and it was just left to degrade? Was there not enough money? Not enough oversight? How do you let things get to this point. It's such a shame.
As far as I know, the exact cause of the failure still isn't known. For many years, Arecibo was under-funded relative to researchers' goals, but I haven't yet seen any actual evidence that corners were cut when it came to the physical structure of the telescope structure itself, as opposed to the science. (This article claims that "maintenance and inspections were current.")
What we know is that the two cables broke despite being under significantly less load than they were originally designed to withstand. One of them was part of the original telescope structure built in the 60s, and the other was added in 1994 as part of an upgrade to support heavier instruments on the equipment platform. But it's unclear whether they failed because of design flaws, gradual deterioration, or catastrophic damage (e.g. from Hurricane Maria in 2017) that somehow went undetected.
It looks like the original NSF press release from the previous thread has been updated with links to some more detailed engineering assessments (at the bottom).
posted by teraflop at 11:05 AM on December 3, 2020 [7 favorites]
As far as I know, the exact cause of the failure still isn't known. For many years, Arecibo was under-funded relative to researchers' goals, but I haven't yet seen any actual evidence that corners were cut when it came to the physical structure of the telescope structure itself, as opposed to the science. (This article claims that "maintenance and inspections were current.")
What we know is that the two cables broke despite being under significantly less load than they were originally designed to withstand. One of them was part of the original telescope structure built in the 60s, and the other was added in 1994 as part of an upgrade to support heavier instruments on the equipment platform. But it's unclear whether they failed because of design flaws, gradual deterioration, or catastrophic damage (e.g. from Hurricane Maria in 2017) that somehow went undetected.
It looks like the original NSF press release from the previous thread has been updated with links to some more detailed engineering assessments (at the bottom).
posted by teraflop at 11:05 AM on December 3, 2020 [7 favorites]
The one bright side is that the decision not to send in engineers to try and repair the lost main cable, due to the risk of catastrophic collapse, has proven correct. One can only imagine (though I'm trying very hard not to) the devastation flying debris, collapsing towers and high speed whipping cables could have done to any people working in the area.
It wasn't budget cutting though, supposedly, the maintenance was still happening. The two cables that failed were supposed to be good for another 15-20 years, and they were inspected repeatedly this year, as part of hurricane and earthquake repairs that were ongoing. The initial failure of the secondary cable in August (some 20 years old) was thought to be fixable, but the failure of a main cable a couple of weeks ago basically sealed its fate. With two unexpected failures in short succession, it meant none of the remaining cables could be trusted, and it was going to be a huge and expensive effort just to try and decommission it safely, with the metaphorical sword of damocles hanging there the whole time.
In short - Arecibo died a few weeks ago, they were just trying to work out how to make the corpse safe. This final collapse, ironically, should make the site potentially easier to clean up, and rebuild, if the will - and money - is there. But they'll have to figure out why the cables failed so early in their lifespan first.
posted by Absolutely No You-Know-What at 11:17 AM on December 3, 2020 [26 favorites]
It wasn't budget cutting though, supposedly, the maintenance was still happening. The two cables that failed were supposed to be good for another 15-20 years, and they were inspected repeatedly this year, as part of hurricane and earthquake repairs that were ongoing. The initial failure of the secondary cable in August (some 20 years old) was thought to be fixable, but the failure of a main cable a couple of weeks ago basically sealed its fate. With two unexpected failures in short succession, it meant none of the remaining cables could be trusted, and it was going to be a huge and expensive effort just to try and decommission it safely, with the metaphorical sword of damocles hanging there the whole time.
In short - Arecibo died a few weeks ago, they were just trying to work out how to make the corpse safe. This final collapse, ironically, should make the site potentially easier to clean up, and rebuild, if the will - and money - is there. But they'll have to figure out why the cables failed so early in their lifespan first.
posted by Absolutely No You-Know-What at 11:17 AM on December 3, 2020 [26 favorites]
But they'll have to figure out why the cables failed so early in their lifespan first.
"It's a very sobering feeling to be up in space and realize that one's safety factor was determined by the lowest bidder on a government contract." -- Alan Shepard
posted by jim in austin at 12:15 PM on December 3, 2020 [18 favorites]
"It's a very sobering feeling to be up in space and realize that one's safety factor was determined by the lowest bidder on a government contract." -- Alan Shepard
posted by jim in austin at 12:15 PM on December 3, 2020 [18 favorites]
Could Arecibo still have made some useful work, or was it no longer being used?
posted by Termite at 1:15 PM on December 3, 2020
posted by Termite at 1:15 PM on December 3, 2020
Termite, Arecibo was still an active observatory doing good and useful science. It was unique in many ways. For instance, since it could transmit as well as receive, it was the best instrument to do radar analysis of asteroid orbits for potentially hazardous objects. We don't have anything nearly as good for doing that, now.
posted by indexy at 1:24 PM on December 3, 2020 [9 favorites]
posted by indexy at 1:24 PM on December 3, 2020 [9 favorites]
.
I walked across that catwalk in 2009. It was an amazing view.
Arecibo was still doing good work right until the end (see the previous thread), and it will be interesting to see the post-mortem report on how much of this was bad luck and how much was preventable. It had been a long time since Arecibo was at the top of any priority list for support, and yet it still kept chugging along. There are a lot of very sad planetary scientists...
posted by puffyn at 1:26 PM on December 3, 2020 [9 favorites]
I walked across that catwalk in 2009. It was an amazing view.
Arecibo was still doing good work right until the end (see the previous thread), and it will be interesting to see the post-mortem report on how much of this was bad luck and how much was preventable. It had been a long time since Arecibo was at the top of any priority list for support, and yet it still kept chugging along. There are a lot of very sad planetary scientists...
posted by puffyn at 1:26 PM on December 3, 2020 [9 favorites]
It sounds like the initial failure was of the socket attachment of a cable, not the cable itself. This loss then may have put extra stress on the remaining cables that may have been beyond their design strength.
posted by JackFlash at 1:47 PM on December 3, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by JackFlash at 1:47 PM on December 3, 2020 [2 favorites]
it was the best instrument to do radar analysis of asteroid orbits for potentially hazardous objects
A sobering thought, in the context of how certain governments did nothing early this year, in the face of an impending pandemic.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 2:25 PM on December 3, 2020 [1 favorite]
A sobering thought, in the context of how certain governments did nothing early this year, in the face of an impending pandemic.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 2:25 PM on December 3, 2020 [1 favorite]
In this video posted on Youtube a drone is inspecting the condition of the top of Tower 4 (drone footage starts at 0:53). You can see the cable nearest to the camera has failed 20 or 30cm away from the actual attachment point, and in cables 3 and 4 some strands have already snapped: you can see the paint layer having partially come off. You can also see a broken strand from cable 3 sticking down and touching the base of the attachment block, also having snapped about 20cm away from where it enters the block. Cable 2 appears intact. Then at 1:01 another strand in cable 3 snaps, there's a puff of paint flakes, and 2 seconds later the entire cable fails, immediately followed by cables 4 and 2.
Attachment points are a failure spot, and it surprises me a bit that those breaks are slightly away from the actual point where the load is transferred from the cable to the anchor. But then I'm not a structural engineer.
posted by Stoneshop at 2:41 PM on December 3, 2020 [2 favorites]
Attachment points are a failure spot, and it surprises me a bit that those breaks are slightly away from the actual point where the load is transferred from the cable to the anchor. But then I'm not a structural engineer.
posted by Stoneshop at 2:41 PM on December 3, 2020 [2 favorites]
it surprises me a bit that those breaks are slightly away from the actual point where the load is transferred from the cable to the anchor
You and every iPhone owner.
posted by flabdablet at 2:56 PM on December 3, 2020 [4 favorites]
You and every iPhone owner.
posted by flabdablet at 2:56 PM on December 3, 2020 [4 favorites]
Aw, man. I have such a soft spot for Arecibo; the observatory was one of the first massive structures I recall learning of independent of any parent, family member or teacher; just happened across photos of it while reading about space in my primary school library in the mid 80s. The juxtaposition of seeming wild jungles and the clinical coldness of space exploration not only fuelled an early fascination with science fiction, but it had powerful echos of what I guess are now other, older, examples of jungle ruins marking the passage of once-great civilizations.
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair.
posted by MarchHare at 3:53 PM on December 3, 2020 [1 favorite]
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair.
posted by MarchHare at 3:53 PM on December 3, 2020 [1 favorite]
Seeing those cables let loose is both fascinating and scary.
posted by Dip Flash at 4:53 PM on December 3, 2020
posted by Dip Flash at 4:53 PM on December 3, 2020
.
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 6:24 PM on December 3, 2020
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 6:24 PM on December 3, 2020
Regardless of any continuing function as a research tool, Arecibo was-is a major item of internationally significant cultural heritage, recognisable on a par with lots of monuments you could name, and the demolition-by-neglect deserves shame and grief just for its impact on conservation value. What a loss.
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 11:09 PM on December 3, 2020 [7 favorites]
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 11:09 PM on December 3, 2020 [7 favorites]
> a major item of internationally significant cultural heritage
It is that. It was sad watching the video, like watching an old friend go down fighting. OTOH, given how the rest of PR has been treated since Maria ... it kind of fits right in. But the spirit that lifted Arecibo will prevail.
posted by Twang at 12:07 AM on December 4, 2020
It is that. It was sad watching the video, like watching an old friend go down fighting. OTOH, given how the rest of PR has been treated since Maria ... it kind of fits right in. But the spirit that lifted Arecibo will prevail.
posted by Twang at 12:07 AM on December 4, 2020
> ...meanwhile, FAST opened last January.Unfortunately, it wasn't a replacement for Arecibo, being designed and built for different science objectives. As a powerful radar device for detecting and imaging near-earth objects it has had no replacement.
posted by runcifex at 12:53 AM on December 4, 2020 [2 favorites]
I'm constantly surprised, when reading about this and other grand-scale science projects that have been left to fall apart unfunded, how seldom people really cut to the real root of this problem, that Arecibo wasn't built to be a beacon of scientific research—it was massively funded by the military to serve a function in ballistic missile research and early warning radar, just like Jodrell Bank, Goldstone, and the Soviet Pluton complex. The scientific mission of these places was icing on the cake at times and a useful cover story at others, but when the military mission dried up, either because of geopolitics or the military building their own secret capacity, the money went. Because we really don't value science much as a species, I fear we'll need a fresh cold war to bankroll the next big projects, alas.
Sadly, this leaves us with basically no radar astronomy outside of Goldstone, though it looks like they're adding radar capabilities to the big dish at Green Bank, so that'll be something. Such a loss.
posted by sonascope at 8:17 AM on December 5, 2020 [1 favorite]
Sadly, this leaves us with basically no radar astronomy outside of Goldstone, though it looks like they're adding radar capabilities to the big dish at Green Bank, so that'll be something. Such a loss.
posted by sonascope at 8:17 AM on December 5, 2020 [1 favorite]
« Older "...she does not belong in talk radio as practiced... | Bro Culture, Fitness, Chivalry, and American... Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
posted by mhoye at 9:31 AM on December 3, 2020 [28 favorites]