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A comment on Arecibo telescope, on the brink of collapse, will be dismantled. Parent comment

Re:Arecibo telescope, on the brink of collapse, will be dism... by goatinaboat on Thursday November 19, 2020 @03:39PM (#25154072)
Giant steel objects are much harder to keep intact, to the point where non iconic objects are easier to replace once than maintain for 100+ years.

What about the Eiffel Tower? Or Blackpool Tower. That proves it can be done.

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Re:Arecibo telescope, on the brink of collapse, will be dism... by oillio on Thursday November 19, 2020 @03:50PM (#25154180)
Those are iconic. The difference between being possible and being cost effective.
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Re:Arecibo telescope, on the brink of collapse, will be dism... by Miraste on Thursday November 19, 2020 @04:30PM (#25154623)
Those are both made of iron.
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Re:Arecibo telescope, on the brink of collapse, will be dism... by spiritplumber on Thursday November 19, 2020 @05:56PM (#25155343)
So they're iconic and ironic.
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Re:Arecibo telescope, on the brink of collapse, will be dism... by auxym on Thursday November 19, 2020 @08:09PM (#25156366)
The word is actually "ferrous", but, yeah.
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Re:Arecibo telescope, on the brink of collapse, will be dism... by throwanem on Thursday November 19, 2020 @10:43PM (#25157127)
Steel is iron, with a carbon content somewhere in the range of about 0.25% to 2%.
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Re:Arecibo telescope, on the brink of collapse, will be dism... by ashtonkem on Friday November 20, 2020 @12:53AM (#25157687)
No, steel is an alloy of iron, carbon, and other trace elements. Saying that "Steel is iron" is like saying "Bronze is copper".
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Re:Arecibo telescope, on the brink of collapse, will be dism... by throwanem on Friday November 20, 2020 @05:11AM (#25159020)
It isn't, but that's beside the point, which is that there's little enough difference between iron and steel that the Eiffel and Blackpool towers being made of wrought iron doesn't prevent them demonstrating that large structures engineered in steel are quite possible to maintain given the requisite investment in actually doing the maintenance.

(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.)

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