16km telescope

CBS "60 Minutes" had a coverage of ALMA Observatory, a giant array of fifty 12-m antennas which can be reconfigured into an equivalent 16km telescope (Yes, 16km telescope!). This 19-nation joint project costs $1.2B and is located on a plateau at 5km altitude in Chile. It is equipped with a supercomputer at 5km altitude to process stupendous amount of data. It is expected to "see" what happened just after the "Big Bang". Hopefully, this expensive and esoteric science will justify its impact on human beings 50 years from now.  
ALMA