Zinc creep in cable spelter sockets brought down the Arecibo telescope in 2020

Re:Zinc creep in cable spelter sockets brought down the Arec... by fsckboy on Sunday November 01, 2026 @02:06AM (#50323328)

it had already been decommissioned prior to the collapse. Yes, decommissioning does indicate funding is being cut, but it was unrelated to the collapse.

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Re:Zinc creep in cable spelter sockets brought down the Arec... by phyzome on Sunday November 01, 2026 @06:13AM (#50324515)

That's... kind of the point. Catastrophic failures usually have non-technical contributory causes as well, and we ignore that at our peril.

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Re:Zinc creep in cable spelter sockets brought down the Arec... by buran77 on Sunday November 01, 2026 @06:40AM (#50324687)

> it had already been decommissioned prior to the collapse

The telescope was decommissioned one month before the collapse. The funding issues, lack of sufficient maintenance, and the inevitable decay that led to the collapse took a few decades more than that.

> Yes, decommissioning does indicate funding is being cut, but it was unrelated to the collapse.

The collapse was a direct consequence of the funding being cut. Maintenance was not performed on issues that were observed many years before exactly on the sockets that failed.

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Re:Zinc creep in cable spelter sockets brought down the Arec... by fsckboy on Tuesday November 03, 2026 @02:03AM (#50348950)

it was decommissioned due to damage caused by Hurricane Maria in 2017.

Repairing it would require extra funding, so it collapsed from the hurricane damage and it did not collapse due to cuts in funding.

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