This is John Bachelor, conversation with Professor Jack Burns at the University of Colorado at Boulder

about his participation in a future project Radio Telescope on the far side of the Moon.

The professor introduces us to what he says is a $5 billion project under study by NASA

to construct the biggest and the most sensitive radio telescope

imaginable out in the far side of the moon

where it will not, in any fashion, experience interference from the Earth.

Wonderful, but the way they're going to do it is especially surprising.

Not manufacturing it on Earth.

Listen to the professor.

The imagination here is daunting, exciting.

The moon, here we come.

More of this later.

Hotel Mars.

Well, John, a project we've actually been working on and have received some design study money

over two phases from NASA is called Farview.

And it's an array, a radio array of 1,000, sorry, 100,000 antennas that we want to place on the far side of the moon.

What's interesting there is that will be the most sensitive radio telescope ever built anywhere, Earth or on the moon.

And secondly, the other thing that in addition to the great science will be able to do is how we're constructing it.

Instead of having to carry all of that material to the moon,

we're actually going to mine some aluminum from the soil or the regolith, as it's called,

on the moon, and a process using an electrolysis mechanism to extract aluminum and then plate that

aluminum back on the surface. In other words, we'll do advanced manufacturing of our antennas, our solar panels, and our cables on the

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