The Lifecycles of the Arecibo Observatory: Understanding the social, cultural, and political contexts of research facility host sites

FAIN: DOI-299586-24

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (Troy, NY 12180-3590)
Raquel Velho (Project Director: October 2023 to present)

Research and analysis of the history and development of the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico and the multifaceted impacts on local residents and communities.  

Large research facilities such as astronomical observatories are essential to the advancement of science, but their value to host communities is not always clear. Though social impact assessments for research facilities are often undertaken, proposed facilities can cause tremendous social friction. The proposed project therefore offers a step towards redressing this gap of knowledge, proposing a situational analysis of the history of decision-making that enables the formation of new research infrastructures and the consequences of those decisions as science-society interactions at the sites and host localities of large-scale research infrastructures throughout their lifecycle (i.e., their development, establishment, operation, and decommission) through a case study of the history of the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico.