We’re getting closer to knowing whether South Africa or Australia will win the bid to build the Square Kilometer Array (SKA), a vast radio telescope which will span a radius of thousands of kilometers and allow astronomers to peer further and deeper into the cosmos than ever before.  SKA’s site advisory committee announced on 10 March 2012 that they had selected the Southern African site as being the better choice, although they emphasized that the decision had been difficult as both countries had made compelling cases.  Now that the recommendation has been made, the member countries sponsoring the telescope will vote and make a final decision, and since the choice was such a difficult one, it is not yet certain that the decision will be honoured.

The Australian location guarantees extreme radio silence, and its remote and inhospitable nature makes it unattractive to human settlement, meaning that it will stay suitable for a very long time.  South Africa, on the other hand, offered lower construction costs, and better data connectivity.  Additionally, the neighbouring countries participating in the South African bid stand to benefit hugely from the enormous influx of skills, and local development of high technology needed to support the project.  Kim Carr, former Australian science minister alluded to this last fact in 2010 with his snide remark that “There are better ways to sustain development, if that’s what your primary purpose is” — something which could not have endeared him to the committee!

The SKA will be composed of 3000 individual 15 meter radio dishes, with a total surface area of one square kilometer.  They will be arranged in a dense central hub, with spiral arms extending outwards some 5000 km.  It will be the largest and most sensitive radio telescope ever built, able to detect faint signals from the furthest reaches of the universe with unprecedented detail.  It will cost $2.5 billion to build, and is expected to cost an additional $25 billion to maintain over its operational lifespan.  Construction is expected to start in 2016, and will take 10 years to complete.  In order to function, it requires computing, construction and data capacity that is far beyond the current state of the art.  Even aside from the massive scientific contributions it will make, the spin-off benefits from all this new technological development make the projected costs a small and entirely worthy investment.  The money is provided by the sponsor countries, making a winning bid that much more valuable to the host country.

As a South African, I obviously hope that we win the bid.  But wherever the telescope is built, the real winners will be the entire population of the Earth.  National pride comes a distant second to the knowledge and advancement this project will bring to the world.