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> But infrastructure ages, and 60 years isn't a bad run. Infrastructure can also be maintained and last longer than this, which is why I'm personally sad. Had
by aylmao 6y ago
> But infrastructure ages, and 60 years isn't a bad run.
Infrastructure can also be maintained and last longer than this, which is why I'm personally sad. Had Arecibo always had the ~60 year timeline, it would've been a bittersweet retirement, like Voyager. In this case I just feel like it's gone before it should. Arecibo has been receiving reduced funding since the early 2000s [1].
The end of an era, although thankfully not of science mega-projects. There's still plenty of cool ones operating or under construction.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arecibo_Observatory#Funding_concerns https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arecibo_Observatory#Funding_co...
- Retric 6y agoIt really depends on the structure. Giant steel objects are much harder to keep intact, to the point where non iconic objects are easier to replace once than maintain for 100+ years.
- goatinaboat 6y agoGiant steel objects are much harder to keep intact, to the point where non iconic objects are easier to replace once than maintain for 100+ years. What about the Eiffel Tower? Or Blackpool Tower. That proves it can be done.
- oillio 6y agoThose are iconic. The difference between being possible and being cost effective.
- Miraste 6y agoThose are both made of iron.
- spiritplumber 6y agoSo they're iconic and ironic.
- auxym 6y agoThe word is actually "ferrous", but, yeah.
- throwanem 6y agoSteel is iron, with a carbon content somewhere in the range of about 0.25% to 2%.
- ashtonkem 6y agoNo, steel is an alloy of iron, carbon, and other trace elements. Saying that "Steel is iron" is like saying "Bronze is copper".
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- throwanem 6y agoIt isn't, but that's beside the point, which is that there's little enough difference between iron and steel that the Eiffel and Blackpool towers being made of wrought iron doesn't prevent them demonstrating that large structures engineered in steel are quite possible to maintain given the requisite investment in actually doing the maintenance. (Saying that, for example, 300-series stainless, around 30-40% chromium and nickel, "is iron", could be fairly criticized this way. Mild steel not so much, and that was what I really had in mind with the statement, although I concede I didn't say so.)
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- onecommentman 6y agoI think the skyscrapers in NYC would beg to differ. But there is regular maintenance on those. Which is why this sounds like more like a failure in due diligence than the natural course of affairs. But if it is obsolete, then that is another matter.
- jacquesm 6y agoSteel exposed to the weather is an entirely different story from steel inside a structure.
- dgr582systems 6y agoLike the (iconic) Sydney Harbour Bridge which requires continuous repainting. It’s very expensive to maintain. https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/blogs/ag-blog/2013/11/painting-the-sydney-harbour-bridge/ https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/blogs/ag-blog/2013/1...
- angus-prune 6y agoConstant painting is also a sign of efficiency. Rather than a large number of people painting it for a small period of time, which requires a startup and close down overhead; they have instead resourced it so that they can keep a small number of people employed permenantly who accumulate expertise and minimise the mobilisations costs.
- brnt 6y agoNow I really want to know what it's like working on the team that repaints the bridge for years or decades on end.
- nicoffeine 6y agoProbably not to different from refactoring the same CRUD applications over and over to keep up with with the other poor bastards who had to do it first. Except you get exercise and fresh air.
- kortilla 6y agoThat’s a pretty bad analogy because you don’t refactor for maintenance. A better equivalent would be swapping out hard drives in a major storage system or servers in a data center on the scale of Google. It’s mind numbing work but it’s better than many other “pick and place” style manual labor. At least with painting a bridge the scenery is better although the temperature is more harsh.
- shagie 6y agoFor the Golden Gate Bridge - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-04-15/the-never-ending-job-of-painting-the-golden-gate-bridge https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-04-15/the-never...
- mixmax 6y agoNot really - steel boats easily last 100 years. A friend of mine lives in one from around 1940 and the steel is in fine shape. As long as it's properly maintained there's no problem.
- Retric 6y agoYet, Modern ships have a lifespan of 25 to 30 years before corrosion, metal fatigue and a lack of parts render them uneconomical to operate. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_breaking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_breaking With smaller boats labor is a higher fraction of construction costs vs raw materials. Going big results in massive increases in efficiency which almost paradoxically shift things to a shorter ship lifespan.
- RhodoYolo 6y agoDo you have a list or link to any mega projects you are currently excited about?
- piyh 6y agoStarshade is a crazy concept that could do more for the search for life than any previous approach by allowing us to block out a star to directly view its planets. https://youtu.be/-jA2ABHBc6Y?t=3652 https://youtu.be/-jA2ABHBc6Y?t=3652
- kristianp 6y agoNon-youtube link. https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/resources/1015/flower-power-nasa-reveals-spring-starshade-animation/ https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/resources/1015/flower-power-nasa...
- aylmao 6y agoThree that sound pretty exciting to me are ITER [1], the Extremely Large Telescope [2] and the James Webb Space Telescope. I'm sure there is also more I haven't heard of yet! [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITER https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITER [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extremely_Large_Telescope https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extremely_Large_Telescope [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extremely_Large_Telescope https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extremely_Large_Telescope
- XorNot 6y agoJames Webb is the one I worry about the most. ITER has a taken a long time, but they're making steady forward progress with it. Whereas I live in fear that James Webb will suffer a failure during launch or deployment that just turns it into a very expensive explosion.
- aylmao 6y agoI agree. Or even if nothing explodes, I'm worried that during the unfolding something will break or get stuck and, and unlike Hubble it won't be "easily" repairable (if at all). Hopefully this doesn't happen, because it is a once-in-many-decades project.
- rmason 6y agoWouldn't it be infinitely cheaper to replace all the cables/fixtures and simply rebuild it? Or have the funders simply lost interest in it? Is a GoFundMe campaign outside of the realm of possibility? I know that I'd contribute to such a worthy effort, but only if the rest of the players would pledge to fund current operations.
- ardy42 6y ago> Is a GoFundMe campaign outside of the realm of possibility? I know that I'd contribute to such a worthy effort, but only if the rest of the players would pledge to fund current operations. The biggest GoFundMe campaign according to Wikipedia only raised $25 million in 2020 dollars (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GoFundMe#Notable_projects https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GoFundMe#Notable_projects, Bannon's et al's fraudulent We Build the Wall project). Arecibo cost $9.3 million to build in 1963 dollars (https://ethw.org/Milestones:NAIC/Arecibo_Radiotelescope,_1963 https://ethw.org/Milestones:NAIC/Arecibo_Radiotelescope,_196...), which is about $80 million in 2020 dollars. Even after one-time construction costs, millions in ongoing operating costs and maintenance would be required as well. So, no, a GoFundMe campaign to rebuild it is not a possibility. Even hot-button political issues can't get close to the needed funds, and this is not ever going to be a hot-button issue.
- smnrchrds 6y agoWikipedia itself raises more than $120 million per year. I don't think a telescope could attract as much in donations as Wikipedia, but it is interesting to see how high could donations possibly go.
- adventured 6y agoThe only reason Wikipedia can do that is because it's at the top of 50% of all Google search results. Constant epic scale exposure that Wikipedia has been able to use to push for donations (and further to build up a routine of it, an understanding of how Wikipedia operates, to millions of people). Realistically Arecibo has nothing like that to leverage. Donating to Wikipedia is a value to action instant feedback process: you land on a nice and helpful Wikipedia page, you derive value, you give some value back; again, Arecibo can't offer that kind of in the moment, click of a mouse, value-donation gratification to large numbers of donors. Arecibo's donor pool is mostly the Paul Allens of the world.
- koski_pindora 6y agoI'm sad as well. I was lucky to visit the site 2006.