Deputy Speaker, I move without notice:
That the House -
(1) notes that the South African Astronomical Observatory has successfully modified the Southern African Large Telescope (SALT), the largest optical telescope in the southern hemisphere, ahead of its recommissioning early in 2011;
(2) further notes that SALT is South Africa's trailblazer in large- scale international astronomical partnerships and will be the testing ground for best practice in cost-efficient collaborations and leading-edge astronomical research;
(3) acknowledges that SALT will complement the ground-breaking radio astronomy expected from MeerKAT, near Carnarvon in the Northern Cape, which is the demonstrator project so essential to South Africa's bid to host the world's largest telescope, the Square Kilometre Array; (4) congratulates the South African Astronomical Observatory's staff at SALT on repairing, onsite, the telescope's unique and highly specialized spherical aberration corrector, thus proving that South Africa has a wealth of exceptional technical skills that are equal to the best in the world; and
(5) further congratulates SALT and MeerKAT and the HESS gamma-ray telescope in Namibia for giving South Africa an outstanding opportunity to establish its international reputation in the field of multiwavelength astronomy.
Agreed to.