It also seeks the implementation of a research and workforce development program, with the center slated to open next year in the northern mountain town of Arecibo where the telescope was once located.The 1,000-foot-wide (305-meter-wide) dish also was featured in the Jodie Foster film “Contact” and the James Bond movie “GoldenEye.”The reflector dish and the 900-ton platform hanging 450 feet above it previously allowed scientists to track asteroids headed to Earth, conduct research that led to a Nobel Prize and determine if a planet is potentially habitable.A main cable broke three months later, prompting the NSF to announce in November 2020 that it was closing the telescope because the structure was too unstable.Jones said in a phone interview that the decision to not rebuild the telescope comes in part because the U.S. government has other radar facilities that can do part of the mission that Arecibo once did.He said by phone that one of the agency’s priorities is to make STEM more accessible and inclusive and that the proposed education center would fill that need."