Telescope will benefit SA
2008-04-23 21:14
Pretoria - Preparations for South Africa's bid to host the world's biggest radio telescope were on track, the Department of Science and Technology said on Wednesday.
Briefing media following a two-day conference in Pretoria, the department's Tshepo Seekoe said the acquisition had been finalised of 14 000 hectares of land in the Northern Cape's Karoo, where the telescope would be based if South Africa won the bid.
South Africa, along with Australia, was in the running to host the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) telescope. The announcement as to who would host the telescope was expected in 2011.
Telescope 'will improve lives of South Africans'
Seekoe said that should the country win the bid it would improve the lives of South Africans.
"As a country we have the opportunity to increase the number of scientists and engineers. It offers us as a country the development of new technology," said Seekoe.
The building of the first phase of the SKA, the Meerkat, would help increase infrastructure and increase the quality of education within the province.
Bursaries had been made available since 2005 by the department for students to study science. A total of 69 bursaries were made available while a further 26 had been awarded to students from African countries in various engineering and science fields.
"When we started this project it was interesting to find that there was a lot of people who felt you can't really build such a high tech instrument in Africa... I mean South Africa, you know, be serious... and that attitude has changed a lot," said SKA project manager Bernie Fanaroff.
Budget for innovation, bursaries and infrastructure
"The building of the Meerkat is expected to cost around R900m. A lot of that will go into bursaries, some of it goes into innovation, infrastructure and some of it goes into the instrument.
"The budget for the SKA is about R20bn. The idea is that it will be built by an international consortium," Fanaroff said.
Funding for the Meerkat will come from government.
- SAPA