I was talking with a relatively wealthy lib friend who lives in DC, and I mentioned the arecibo telescope demolition. His response was basically "it's kind of sad, but now that the old/unsafe one is demolished, that should clear the way for building a newer/better one soon." I had no response, it was just a baffling take. This is someone who should know better, but because everything is still working pretty well for him personally, collapse is still an abstract and hypothetical idea. And this is someone far, far less out of touch than any of the decision-makers in government.
For the record, I think there's no way in hell that it ever gets rebuilt, although notably China completed a similar but much larger telescope in 2016.
Edit: imagine thinking that we'll spend 100's of millions on infrastructure, in Puerto Rico, for scientific research. Baffling.
I was talking with a relatively wealthy lib friend who lives in DC, and I mentioned the arecibo telescope demolition. His response was basically "it's kind of sad, but now that the old/unsafe one is demolished, that should clear the way for building a newer/better one soon." I had no response, it was just a baffling take. This is someone who should know better, but because everything is still working pretty well for him personally, collapse is still an abstract and hypothetical idea. And this is someone far, far less out of touch than any of the decision-makers in government.
For the record, I think there's no way in hell that it ever gets rebuilt, although notably China completed a similar but much larger telescope in 2016.
Edit: imagine thinking that we'll spend 100's of millions on infrastructure, in Puerto Rico, for scientific research. Baffling.
Yeah, these people don't realize that things have been closing and nothing has replaced them for decades now.
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