https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/blogs/ag-blog/2013/1...
Rather than a large number of people painting it for a small period of time, which requires a startup and close down overhead; they have instead resourced it so that they can keep a small number of people employed permenantly who accumulate expertise and minimise the mobilisations costs.
Whoever downvoted me, thanks a bunch. Not sure why.
Running a team of painters still costs more than nothing. The cost of painting doesn’t cover the cost of ongoing inspections for metal fatigue etc etc. Engineering reviews, government oversight and so on.
Large bridges, especially with vehicle traffic, vibrate quite a lot and this is causes major ongoing concerns with fatigue, which means extensive monitoring along with the painting. More costs (not saying it’s unjustified).
Keeping a team going is efficient as you say, but more expensive than nothing.
As you say, it would be a lot of work to maintain if they wanted to keep Arecibo running.
Except you get exercise and fresh air.
For those that don't know, paint should be considered a non-optional component of most iron or steel objects, since paint serves the important role of preventing rust formation. It's less important in most uses of aluminum, since aluminum oxide tends to form a protective layer instead of flaking away.
With smaller boats labor is a higher fraction of construction costs vs raw materials. Going big results in massive increases in efficiency which almost paradoxically shift things to a shorter ship lifespan.
What about the Eiffel Tower? Or Blackpool Tower. That proves it can be done.
(Saying that, for example, 300-series stainless, around 30-40% chromium and nickel, "is iron", could be fairly criticized this way. Mild steel not so much, and that was what I really had in mind with the statement, although I concede I didn't say so.)
But if it is obsolete, then that is another matter.
Is a GoFundMe campaign outside of the realm of possibility? I know that I'd contribute to such a worthy effort, but only if the rest of the players would pledge to fund current operations.
The biggest GoFundMe campaign according to Wikipedia only raised $25 million in 2020 dollars (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GoFundMe#Notable_projects, Bannon's et al's fraudulent We Build the Wall project). Arecibo cost $9.3 million to build in 1963 dollars (https://ethw.org/Milestones:NAIC/Arecibo_Radiotelescope,_196...), which is about $80 million in 2020 dollars. Even after one-time construction costs, millions in ongoing operating costs and maintenance would be required as well.
So, no, a GoFundMe campaign to rebuild it is not a possibility. Even hot-button political issues can't get close to the needed funds, and this is not ever going to be a hot-button issue.
Assuming the people supplying the operational funding want to continue to do so it shouldn't take more than low millions to get it going again.
Construction has a lot more costs these days - have to take care of the environment, not kill your workers...
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITER
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extremely_Large_Telescope
[3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extremely_Large_Telescope
[1] https://roman.gsfc.nasa.gov/
[2] https://lisa.nasa.gov/ , https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/LISA
Whereas I live in fear that James Webb will suffer a failure during launch or deployment that just turns it into a very expensive explosion.
Infrastructure can also be maintained and last longer than this, which is why I'm personally sad. Had Arecibo always had the ~60 year timeline, it would've been a bittersweet retirement, like Voyager. In this case I just feel like it's gone before it should. Arecibo has been receiving reduced funding since the early 2000s [1].
The end of an era, although thankfully not of science mega-projects. There's still plenty of cool ones operating or under construction.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arecibo_Observatory#Funding_co...