Looking forward, Arecibo Observatory’s future both in terms of infrastructure and funding is not secure. A complete repair of the damaged cable would involve replacing the cable entirely. Engineers from Ammann & Whitney would install rigging to support the telescope while the damaged cable was removed and replaced. The cost of hanging rigging on top of fabrication and installation of a new cable could run into the millions of dollars. As the National Science Foundation (NSF), which owns Arecibo Observatory, cannot legally carry insurance on its facilities, there is no clear source of funding to carry out such a massive repair. NSF has a contingency fund for such repairs to its facilities, but if that is not available, the costs would have to come out of the general operating budget of the observatory. After having its budget cut throughout the last decade, losing a portion of the budget in the range of 25% would be devastating to the observatory.

A “Dear Colleague Letter” from the NSF dated December 20, 2013 puts Arecibo on a list of “telescope facilities that are viewed as being ready for formal consideration of divestment and related alternatives”. “Divestment” means the NSF could potentially sell Arecibo, but who would buy it? Who could afford to run it? Other alternatives could involve dismantling the facility, pending reviews this year.

The NSF recognizes the high quality of research and science that occurs at Arecibo Observatory (page 105 in particular), but lacks sufficient budget to support the facility. As Puerto Rico lacks a voting member of the United States Congress, we lack vocal congressional advocates for the continued operation of our telescope via sufficient funding for the NSF. Work done at Arecibo Observatory led to a Nobel Prize in physics, and in the present day we provide an essential service to characterize near-Earth asteroids and assess impact hazards. If you would like to see continued scientific results and asteroid monitoring done by Arecibo, please write your congressional representative and encourage them to provide sufficient funding to the NSF for Arecibo and other astronomical observatories. With your support, we can continue the astronomical, atmospheric, and radar observations for years to come that make Arecibo Observatory a world-class scientific facility.