• patb2009

    I know the corrosion starts once they stop maintenance but it would seem
    to be easier to leave it to rust away. Any reason they blew away the towers?

  • Michael Halpern

    If someone is around when it collapses they quite possibly could die, so if its going to collapse its going to be on their terms, when they can make sure that no one is near, it also allows them to control how it falls

  • Emmet Ford

    It’s easier to lease the pad without the crumbling ruins. Speaking more broadly, most places are better without crumbling ruins.

  • Robert G. Oler

    its all interesting…on our farm we have two relics from the old days. a light tower built by the CAA in the 1920’s and four towers of an adock range LM/MF range along with the marker antenna…

    the towers have been up since 1932. they had all been painted as the years went by (we are near the Gulf of Mexico) but in 2012 we had them all serviced bya professional tower company…it was not cheap and a lot of new steel had to go into them…but with epoxy based primer they are good for another 100 or so…they keep the 160 meter antenna up 🙂

  • Michael Halpern

    LC 13 was in very bad shape when they had to tear it down, (before SpaceX turned it into Lz 1 and 2)

  • Andrew Tubbiolo

    160 meter antenna??? Are you contracting to the Navy for ELF services to SSBN’s :)? Sounds like you have a very interesting farm. We used epoxy on our .9m dome in 1995, 23 years later the paint job still looks great and very little rust.

  • mattmcc80

    Also, controlled dismantling/demolition gives them the opportunity to salvage & sell the structural materials that are still good. Leaving it there to rust and collapse lowers its value somewhat.

  • Paul451

    But what did the demolition actually achieve? The wreck is still solid, and needs just as much dismantling as the original tower. What was gained?

  • redneck

    It got the material on the ground where it is safer and cheaper to dismantle.

  • Paul451

    But it was still in bulk, not rubble. It will still have to be dismantled piece by piece. Only now, with the damage of the fall, it’s a lot harder to tell which piece(s) will cause it to collapse on the workers. And it’s still tall enough to require cranes, etc.