Puerto Rico’s Arecibo Observatory: Her loss is already being felt and she feels very personal

The economic impact of the loss of the observatory

The foundation was founded as a non-profit organization in 2011 and works to create opportunities that stimulate the social and economic development of Puerto Rico, with a focus on the visitor economy.

The observatory attracted about 50,000 students and 50,000 other visitors on average each year before Hurricane Maria, said Carlos Ayala, program director of the Foundation for the Puerto Rico Uphill Destination Recovery Initiative.

Ayala spent six months at Arecibo in 2019 studying the economics of visitors to underserved communities on the island. What he learned was how each non-student visitor to the Arecibo area spent around $ 171 a day and stayed in the area for five to seven days, he said.

“The region will suffer as a drop of 50,000 visitors (in visitors) is noticeable,” Ayala said.

Mestizo Cafe and Samcoop 4 Calles Supermarket are two of the many local businesses that rely on a constant flow of observatory tourists. Its closure has already hurt business, cafe owner David Gonzales told CNN by phone on Friday.

“The number of customers has gone down,” Gonzales said. “The closure of the observatory has an impact as people came to visit the area and spend time in the town of Arecibo. Arecibo does not have too many places to visit; the observatory was the most important attraction . “

It was a similar situation at the supermarket. Director Neysha Berenice Domenech said many tourists would stop at the store to buy drinks and snacks on the way to the observatory.

“Now we’re going to have fewer people, which is very sad after having had the observatory for so many years and it’s one of the biggest in the world,” Domenech told CNN by phone. “It was very important to the Puerto Rican people.”

A scientific wonder that educated the masses

The observatory, which was featured in the James Bond film “GoldenEye” and the science fiction film “Contact”, has been operated by the National Science Foundation (NSF) of the United States since 1970.

Lugo was the author of the NSF grant proposal that awarded the University of Central Florida operational control of the Arecibo Observatory in 2018, he said. Since then, the university has been responsible for maintaining facilities, conducting and coordinating scientific research and managing educational programs, he said in a telephone interview.

Scientific research carried out at the observatory falls into three main categories: radio astronomy (the collection of radio signals from elements such as stars and planets), the planetary radar group (which works closely with the program d (NASA’s Near-Earth Object Observation (NEO)), and atmospheric science (involves experiments where the upper atmosphere is heated and probed), Lugo said.

So far this year, research at the observatory had characterized the spin, spin, and shape of 67 asteroids before an auxiliary cable came loose from a socket on one of the site’s towers in August, Lugo said.

This research adds to a litany of scientific achievements at the observatory, including its aid in the discovery of the first binary pulsar in 1974 (which led to the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1993). The observatory also supported NASA’s Viking mission, which produced the first radar maps of the surface of Venus and spotted the first exoplanet in 1992.

To date, research conducted at the observatory has helped around 400 students around the world to earn doctorates, Lugo said.

Despite the heavy damage to parts of the telescope, much of the observatory’s research will continue to use other equipment on site and analyze huge stocks of data already collected, Lugo said.

“The experience at the Arecibo Observatory was amazing, it was my first time doing scientific research,” said González Quiles. “During my time at the academy, we worked on projects that aimed to achieve a goal, which was to design a space regulation for the NASA Ames Space Settlement design competition. I worked on aerospace engineering. for the design. “

Ayala was also one of the many Puerto Rican students to visit the observatory as a young student. He lamented the idea that children could not visit it.

“Losing this important asset is truly a tragedy for public school students,” Ayala said. “Most of the kids in Puerto Rico can’t go to a space camp in the United States and don’t have access to this science.”

Charting the path towards the future of the Arecibo Observatory

Restoring the Arecibo Observatory to its former glory is not enough for Annie Mayol, President and Chief Operating Officer of the Foundation for Puerto Rico.

Mayol believes that improving the roads leading to a reconstructed observatory and adding things like a small hotel on site will attract more visitors.

“We’re on asset rehabilitation and we’re on sustainable tourism,” Mayol said. “It’s about making sure we support our science, our community, and our growing students and use that as inspiration.”

Mayol is hoping the new Biden-Harris administration “will look at Puerto Rico with a different eye” and allocate federal funds to rebuild the site.

In recent months, Lugo said he has met 25 members of Congress and the governor of Puerto Rico to advocate for the reconstruction of the observatory.

Lugo estimates that it would cost $ 400 million to rebuild the Arecibo observatory.

“We are working very hard on the Arecibo 2 model,” he said. “There is already a movement and it will gain momentum over the next few weeks.”