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And of course the mechanisms used to elevate the dish are more than 100 years old- they were originally used to rotate the 15-inch gun turrets of the battleships HMS Revenge and HMS Royal Sovereign, which were built in 1913-16 and served in both World Wars.
The parts were bought as the ships were being scrapped in 1950, and the telescope was designed around them.
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I suppose it would be too dangerous to just let it crumble in place, to eventually become an ancient overgrown ruin of fascinating archæological interest…
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The Jodrell Bank telescope has lasted because it was solidly built. Originally it was supposed to have a mesh surface, but it was found too expensive, so they changed the plans late in the day and put a solid surface on the dish. Apparently it worked fine for a few months, but the signal began to fall off. Why this was happening was a mystery until someone tracked a radio source almost down to the horizon, and forty tons of rain fell out.
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To make sure that future archaeologists won’t run out of “places of ritual worship” to find?
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I’ve been thinking about that stupid plot point for 25 years and I came up with a simple script tweak that could make the whole thing actually make sense.
In my version of the movie the Goldeneye satellite isn’t the source of the energy beam, it just redirects a massive energy beam transmitted from the surface. So the giant dish isn’t a communications array but instead a high-energy transmitter. In the climax the reason it explodes is because the satellite is rigged to bounce the beam back to its point of origin instead of its intended target.
Is that so hard, Hollywood?
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I really hate it when they leave a plot hole, or plot problem, that could be explained away with one sentence yet they just leave it there looking stupid.
And given that it’s James Bond, there’s already enough suspension of disbelief inherent in the process that it shouldn’t take much effort to smooth over any plot potholes.
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Maybe that was the original plan but then the movie makers didn’t want to be accused of ripping off Spies Like Us which shows that exact weapon system in a spy movie 10 years earlier:
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He died though, right? Always seems to happen to that chap (except for Sharp’s Rifles).
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Scott Manley’s take on this. He goes into some detail on Arecibo’s value in characterizing Potentially Hazardous Asteroids
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Interesting that the Chinese Tianyan doesn’t have planetary radar capability.
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He only got fired for saving Matt Damon in The Martian.
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LOL i’ve never seen that movie but its hilarious how blowing up the MTV satellite causes the kids’ TV to explode. I’m glad no one vetoed that with some anal-retentive “realism” argument.
Given that Inception very blatantly stole from Donald Duck, I don’t think the Bond people would have worried much about nicking Spies Like Us, especially when transmission from a satellite dish isn’t an original idea that Spies came up with.
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