Science: Cosmic Dish

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The Navy last week announced contracts to build a radio telescope costing $60 million. The project has two defense purposes: 1) the telescope's enormous dish antenna, over 400 ft. in diameter, can act as a beam transmitter and bounce powerful radio signals off the moon. When they return after 2.6 sec., they can be received with good freedom from jamming at any place on earth where the moon is in the sky; 2) there is also a worthwhile possibility that the great telescope, which concentrates radio waves as a big optical telescope concentrates light waves, will be able to pick up radio evidence reflected off the moon that somebody on earth has exploded a nuclear device or launched a powerful missile.

When the moon is not in the sky, the Navy's dish will be at the service of peacetime scientists. By bringing information from as much as 6 billion light years away, it may tell the size and age of the universe. It may tell whether the universe exploded from a center a few billion years ago, or whether it is still being created and continues indefinitely in all directions in both time and space.