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Arecibo Radio Telescope


Gagarin

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In the 70s I worked in Niagara Falls for a company that had a pharmaceutical operation in Arecibo.  The plan manager lived in San Juan and when the weather cooperated, which was on most days, commuted to work from TJIG to TJAB via his C172.  He parked a beater at the Arecibo airport.

I flew with him 4 of the days I was visiting the plant, and on the flight back to San Juan the 2nd day we overflew the telescope.  I was amazed, since I hadn't previously known it was there.  That was in 1974, and it was a bit newer back then.  

BTW - The drive to the plant was only about 1.5 hours from San Juan, but it's way more fun to fly to work.

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Back in the mid 70s I had a chance to study the radio telescope on site while on my electrical engineering program (BSEE). I spent a week getting familiar with the intricacies and operation of it.   At the time I was also a Star Trek fan so I was tuning in for Klingons;)

Edited by Gagarin
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Golden Eye... - James Bond
 

Make PR great again!

It was, and can be a great pharma manufacturing center...  many US pharma companies have some form of manufacturing there...

Weather is great... Schools are great... People are great... (a hurricane every now and then)

Unfortunately, it is really far from here, for weekly visits... :)

So many nice places to visit on the island...

PP thoughts only, haven’t been there in near a decade...

With the opening of Cuba, flying to PR has much lower risk involved...

Best regards,

-a-

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China has built one that dwarfs it.  Given that the radio astronomy community pretty much stopped writing proposals to use the Arecibo telescope, it was being used to search for little green men.   Lesson here for MS: Lack of maintenance in a humid, salty atmosphere is hard on metal things.  Without proper maintenance, they aren't going to last too long.

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11 minutes ago, 0TreeLemur said:

China has built one that dwarfs it.  Given that the radio astronomy community pretty much stopped writing proposals to use the Arecibo telescope, it was being used to search for little green men.   Lesson here for MS: Lack of maintenance in a humid, salty atmosphere is hard on metal things.  Without proper maintenance, they aren't going to last too long.

Almost sixty years.   That's not a bad run for a big, unique piece of equipment.

Edited by EricJ
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