The project has an estimated 50 year lifespan. Still, the endeavors estimated half century of collaboration might be enough to answer some of astronomer's most long standing oppressing questions about the universe, including inquiries into Einstein's theory of relativity, the nature of dark matter, and perhaps even extraterrestrial life. Now, this is in contrast to the contrast to the VLBI, or very long baseline interferometry, which has been around it's a long standing method of radio astronomy since the 1960s