Puerto Rican government commits $8 million to rebuild Arecibo
The government of Puerto Rico earlier this week announced that it has allocated $8 million to rebuild the Arecibo Observatory.
Via an executive order, Gov. Wanda Vazquez made reconstruction of the observatory public policy. In a ceremony at La Fortaleza, the seat of the island’s government, Vazquez said that the Puerto Rican government believes that the telescope’s collapse provides a great opportunity to redesign it, taking into account the lessons learned and recommendations from the scientific community so that it remains relevant for decades to come.
…Vazquez said that she and her administration want the scope to once again become a world class center and the $8 million being allocated for reconstruction includes funds to repair the environmental damage caused by the collapse, something that has already begun under the supervision of the National Science Foundation (NSF).
We shall see what happens. $8 million is not really enough to rebuild Arecibo. And the NSF has been trying to unload it from its budgetary responsibility for almost a decade. I would be shocked if that agency now suddenly decided to fund its reconstruction.
Only if Congress gets involved will this likely change, and that wouldn’t surprise me, considering how nonchalant our present Congress is about spending money that doesn’t exist.
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The government of Puerto Rico earlier this week announced that it has allocated $8 million to rebuild the Arecibo Observatory.
Via an executive order, Gov. Wanda Vazquez made reconstruction of the observatory public policy. In a ceremony at La Fortaleza, the seat of the island’s government, Vazquez said that the Puerto Rican government believes that the telescope’s collapse provides a great opportunity to redesign it, taking into account the lessons learned and recommendations from the scientific community so that it remains relevant for decades to come.
…Vazquez said that she and her administration want the scope to once again become a world class center and the $8 million being allocated for reconstruction includes funds to repair the environmental damage caused by the collapse, something that has already begun under the supervision of the National Science Foundation (NSF).
We shall see what happens. $8 million is not really enough to rebuild Arecibo. And the NSF has been trying to unload it from its budgetary responsibility for almost a decade. I would be shocked if that agency now suddenly decided to fund its reconstruction.
Only if Congress gets involved will this likely change, and that wouldn’t surprise me, considering how nonchalant our present Congress is about spending money that doesn’t exist.
The support of my readers through the years has given me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Four years ago, just before the 2020 election I wrote that Joe Biden's mental health was suspect. Only in this year has the propaganda mainstream media decided to recognize that basic fact.
Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Even today NASA and Congress refuse to recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are five ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation:
5. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above. And if you buy the books through the ebookit links, I get a larger cut and I get it sooner.
Robert, do you think that we should even bother with ground based telescopes anymore or just do space based with the falling cost of launch (except for amateur astronomy)? And if the latter, should we do big ones like James web or a constellation of small ones around the size of starlink satellites?
David K. – The idea of moving telescopes off Earth is a wonderful concept but that is just not possible in the near future. We lack the technology for building telescopes in space – see James Webb, Hubble, etc. For that reason we need to really consider rebuilding Arecibo. It had capabilities that can’t be replicated by any other telescope. We really should invest in getting those capabilities back.
Joe,
The idea of moving telescopes off Earth is a wonderful concept but that is just not possible in the near future. We lack the technology for building telescopes in space
Granted that current space telescopes under development do not leave a lot of room for encouragement on the cost reduction front, but at least as far as radio telescopes are concerned . . . NIAC’s idea of a Lunar Crater Radio Telescope strikes me as something that is actually affordable and feasible in the near term (2030’s), if we are in fact able to establish a Lunar South Pole base of some kind. https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/niac/2020_Phase_I_Phase_II/lunar_crater_radio_telescope/
Maybe the Biden administration will extend the hand of friendship and Hunter could act as go between. This location would be an ideal spot to rebuild the telescope with Chinese money and expertise.
I have been reluctant to write this because it can easily go off the rails into other topics. I was there three months after Hurricanes Irma and Maria hit, doing work on the electrical grid. I continued for two years doing more electrical projects and I learned a lot about Puerto Rico. I did not know that Puerto Rico had $8 million to spare.
I can honestly say that they need to take that money and put it into their roads. The roads there are atrocious, and that was not caused by the hurricanes! Talking with the locals, there is a lot of corruption and nepotism in the government. I do not think that one nickel will make it to Arecibo.
Gary-
….as long as the Big Guy gets his 10%, I’m sure he’ll greenlight the “project.”
Jay–
Personally, I want to hear more about PR’s electrical grid and roads.
Wayne,
I could write a paper on their electrical grid. If I wanted to get my Master’s degree, I could write a thesis on how to make it better. All of the generation of power on the island is produced in the southern part, where most of the industries are. They burn oil for their power. Most of the population lives in the northern and eastern parts of the island.
There was some photovoltaics, solar, but it got ripped apart by hurricanes. I saw it all heaped into a pile. I asked where these panels would be taken, and I was told it would be taken to the dump. One thing they never factor into these renewables is the cost of demolition/disposal, which is factored into any gas/coal/hydro/nuclear construction costs.
Like I said, power is generated in the south and the power is brought up through the center of the island by two transmission lines. The center of the island is very mountainous and there is an active volcano on the island. When hurricanes Irma and Maria came in, it knocked everything down. When I arrived after, some of the lines were restored, but there were daily brown-outs and power outages.
If I was to redesign the power grid of the island, I would go with a ring-bus design to make sure that power could be delivered from different routes and damaged areas of the island could be isolated and do not shut down the whole island.
On to the roads. There is a local joke on the island: if a car is weaving back and forth on the road, the driver is sober, if a car is going straight on a road, the driver is drunk. The road are in pretty bad shape no matter where you go in the island. Lots of potholes and sections that are crumbling. If I was to open a business in Puerto Rico, it would be a tire shop!
Probably no budget for fixing or maintaining roads.