The space race is still on, but it’s evolved to more aspects of viewing and interaction with the outer limits of our world. For instance, at the moment a race is on between Australia and South Africa to see who can secure the winning bid to build the world’s largest telescope. In addition to it being the largest it’s also going to be the most expensive obviously, since obviously the larger it is the more it’ll cost to build. The reason they’re working on this is more sci-fiction-like than anything we’ve heard so far from the space industry. With a Square Kilometer Array or SKA and a radio observatory with 15m wide dishes totaling about 3,000 in number, these observatories will be able to get more information on man’s last frontier. They will be designed to help track nearby galaxies and better understand what’s called ‘dark energy’ that’s apparently the expansion of the universe.

If that doesn’t sound Star Trekkie enough for you, this new venture should also very significantly boost our transmission and possibly receiving of extra terrestrial signals. The Australians say that their offering would be a telescope so powerful that it would – be sensitive enough to pick up a mobile phone signal on the planet Neptune. And how much would it cost to build this device? A cool 2 Billion Dollars (US). The country that wins the bid will get funding from the rest of the world while putting up a large amount of their own as well. If all goes well this new set up should be fully functional by 2020. ET better shut his bathroom curtain as the Earthly Peeping Toms are getting their gear together.
FT.com