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The instrument platform was listed at 900 tons. The maximum takeoff weight of a Boeing 787 is just over 500,000 pounds, or 250 tons ... is it fair to say the instrument platform was the equivalent of three fully loaded 787s, plus two M1A1 tanks piled on for good measure? That's a lot of weight for those cables to support.

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I always think it's funny when people use large planes as a reference for heavy weights, since they're designed to be as light as possible for the volume.

Probably best to compare Arecibo to a suspension bridge instead

Golden Gate bridge is 887 000 tons: https://edition.cnn.com/2013/11/01/us/golden-gate-bridge-fas...

So around 1000 times as heavy.

That sounds like the weight of the whole thing, not just the suspended part.

I think the Golden Gate Bridge is massively overengineered (although nobody really knows) because materials engineering wasn’t super advanced back then.

I don't think the instrument platform was exactly designed to be heavy!

But how many football fields wide was it, and how many olympic swimming pools could you pour into it before it was full?

Libraries of Congress is my go-to unit of measurement.

/s

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