Puerto Rico Begins Effort to Rebuild Arecibo Observatory's Radio Telescope

[mike_c]

5. I'm sceptical.

There is no doubt that Arecibo was a beast, but radio telescope construction and operation have changed a lot since it came online. At the time, receivers and digitizers were shockingly expensive, which favored large, single receiver instruments. That's not so true anymore, which means telescopes can more affordably leverage wide arrays of smaller antennas. I'll be very surprised if the NSF funds rebuilding Arecibo in its prior form and mission.