Part of the Clinton shift to China was the production of wire rope or steel cable, including elevator cables.
A friend of mine owned a large wire rope manufacturering plant in the US. After China dumped cheap garbage cable on the market and took his customers, they came to my friend and offered to purchase all his manufacturing equipment so they could ship it to China.
He refused to sell to China, but still had to shut down.
All that Chinese made garbage steel cable is now surfacing.
Interesting but this telescope saw first light 57 years ago.
That means it’s cables were manufacture probably between 1959 and 1961.
Long time before Clinton unless the cables were replaced during the Clinton era.
Which considering that those cables see a great deal of stress they probably should have been.
Any rigger would tell you that the rig angles on the suspension cables for this telescope is far from ideal.
Yup!
It’s getting noticed by everybody, even people who previously never took any notice of metallurgy.
A mechanic buddy of mine was talking about putting in some stainless steel brake lines, and then he caught himself, and said, “Well, it’s Chinese stainless”. With the obvious inference that Chinese steel is garbage. And let me tell you, this friend of mine is by no means a metallurgist.