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The dish is nothing but aluminum sheeting with holes in it. The vast majority of the cost and complexity are in the instrument cluster and the towers. There's n
by paledot 6y ago
The dish is nothing but aluminum sheeting with holes in it. The vast majority of the cost and complexity are in the instrument cluster and the towers. There's not much of value left to repair at this point.
As for replacing cables, anyone who has rebuilt a RAID array will tell you that hardware is most likely to fail when it's under stress, like when you have workers in the towers setting the footings for the new ultra-safe cables. It's not just dangerous because they don't know when it'll give way, it's dangerous because messing with it was likely to trigger a collapse like what we just saw.
- dredmorbius 6y agoThe location itself, both in terms of terrain and extant infrastructure and personnel also has value. Without the dish to support it, that's also a writeoff. Still likely not a compelling case for rebuilding, however.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- dheera 6y agoWhy would there workers in the towers? I assumed that in 2020 we have unmanned solutions to taking something down, and then rebuilding would be done with proper engineering as if it were a new radio telescope but the dish is already built for you.
- vkou 6y agoYour assumption is off by a few decades. No robot currently exists that can replace even a tiny fraction of the tasks a 16 year old teenager with a hard-hat and steel toed boots can do at a construction site.