Heads in the Stars, Feet on the Ground: Scale and Astronomy Initiatives in Southern Africa

This article explores the evolution of radio astronomy in South Africa and Madagascar, focusing on how “scale” functions as both a way of understanding the world and marking differences in existence. In outer space research, the ground is crucial but often overlooked. By collaboratively examining the expansion of infrastructure for radio astronomy, driven by the goal of scaling up research objectives, we navigate across different scales to present this story through three key perspectives. We attend to Vanessa, an astronomer in Cape Town caring for the conditions on the ground; we explore the historically contingent situation in the South African Karoo, hosting the core of the world’s largest radio telescope; and we scrutinize the potential of a telescope in Madagascar, and its role in the country’s space research ambitions. Together, these perspectives illustrate how scale operates as both an ontological and epistemological concept, closely tied to the ground.