This is from the latest issue of Astronomy magazine from an article about the Arecibo radio telescope. Things started breaking on it, but they could have been fixed. Here is the quote from Abel Mendez, a planetary astrobiologist:
The issue in all the meetings was that the NSF [National Science Foundation] was holding everything up. They were so scared of the observatory collapsing at any moment that they imposed strong restrictions about repairs.
The impression that I got from the staff of the observatory was that they had the engineers – we could start anytime. They were eager to start repairs.
But the NSF said, no, don’t risk life. And I was – many people were mad at this decision. And you have to see the point of the NSF that this was a risky operation and people might lose their life there if something happens.
But we know that people were willing to risk their life. [p. 30]
And so we lost a great radio telescope.
This is also pretty much the story of the Wuhan virus and the powers that be in this country. They are incredibly fearful of anyone losing their life, while plenty of us are willing to risk losing our lives in order to live normally.
Fortunately, where I live we have been open for more than a month, and I seldom think about masks anymore. I pity those in LA, whose mayor wants people to wear masks again. However, the sheriff says he won’t enforce it due to cuts in police funding. See here. Heh.
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