Famous Arecibo telescope that starred in a James Bond film to be demolished

krokus

krokus

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w2xq said:
Management's excuse to demolish: too dangerous to repair.

My question: More dangerous than to build in the first place?

Pfft.
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Yes, it is. When being constructed, the materials were in a known good condition, with known loading. Right now there are many unknowns, similar to when a decrepit building is demolished, as it is unsafe to rehab it.
 
krokus

krokus

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royldean said:
As an update to those who haven't heard, it was INDEED too dangerous to repair, as it came crashing to the ground spontaneously earlier this month.
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That video was really sad to watch. All the benefits the science community received from that facility, and what could still have been learned.

Hopefully the similar facility that China has built will take up some of that slack.
 
buddrousa

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That looks almost like charges going off and the drone was there just at the right time. Sorry but that has the look of professional demolition wrote all over it.
 
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Patch42

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buddrousa said:
That looks almost like charges going off and the drone was there just at the right time. Sorry but that has the look of professional demolition wrote all over it.
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I didn't watch the video posted here but I saw another that included slow motion close-up shots of the collapse starting. Unless somebody planted explosives inside a bundle of cables that were painted as a whole on the exterior resulting in just one cable in a giant bundle to snap, it wasn't a professional demolition. The collapse was the result of previous damage causing too much strain on the remaining cables, ending up with one segment snapping and the increase in load causing a failure cascade in the remaining cables.
 
buddrousa

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They were flying a drone close and you can see behind the cable attachment point smoke before it started.
 
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Patch42

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I just watched the drone footage in slow motion and I can see no smoke before the break starts. One cable bundle had already failed, which was why the drone was there in the first place, inspecting the damage. The increased tension on the remaining cables is what caused the rest to fail. You can see where the paint has come off two of the other cable bundles where the cables had been sliding against each other and stretching with the increased load.

One single cable snaps, changing the loading on the remainder. It's the straw that broke the camel's back. The remaining cables shift a bit with the changed load. There's a little bit of up and down motion on the cable bundle as the change in load ripples through the bundle. Then the remaining cables in that bundle all give way at once. There was no smoke or dust until after those cables snapped.
 
buddrousa

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I have dropped several commercial towers I know how this game works the great thing about this country is we are each allowed to believe in what we want have a nice day.
 
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