Technological Development in South Africa

Technological development is an important component of a developing economy. In the case of South Africa, the economy is changing as the social and political order is changing now that apartheid has been eliminated and a new regime set in place. South Africa has undertaken a number of projects for technological development in order to benefit the economy, and it has extended earlier efforts with new market analyses and the creation of new products.

Before the change in regime, the government of South Africa admitted that in some areas, it was more technologically advanced than the world had known. Monitors had detected what is called a "double flash" in South Africa in 1979, and this refers to the successive explosions of light produced by the detonation of an atom bomb. The flash was noted by a U.S. surveillance satellite and was widely cited as proof of an ominous development: the South African regime had built the ultimate weapon to intimidate its own black population and to keep outside enemies at bay. A U.S. commission cast doubt on this theory in 1980, but in 1994, the South African government admitted that it had in fact built nuclear bombs, even if it denied ever having tested them. President F.W. de Klerk then disclosed that South Africa had produced six Hiroshimasize atomic weapons, but he also said that the nuclear arsenal had been destroyed along with the bomb making facilities soon after he took office in 1989. Though President De Klerk claimed that

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s which are run from the AEC and from selected community centers ("Atomic Energy Corporation of South Africa"). One area of study in which South Africa has concentrated efforts is astronomy. In 1998, the South African Minister of Arts, Culture, Science And Technology, Lionel Phm. Mtshali, announced the beginning of construction on the Southern African Large Telescope (SALT), to be sited near Sutherland in the Northern Cape, South Africa. SALT is to be a 9m class telescope for optical and infrared astronomy and will be a southern hemisphere equivalent of the HobbyEberly Telescope (HET) at McDonald Observatory, Texas, using the same radical design, which means that the instrument at Sutherland will cost a mere 20 percent of the price of a conventional telescope of the same power. South Africa had been involved in astronomical research before, but because of substantial developments in the firm, its capacity was now lagging behind. This will change with the creation of SALT, which is expected to have a productive lifetime of at least 30 years. The South African Government will fund 50 percent of the construction costs over five years, and the remaining funds are being raised from international partners in exchange for obs

Category: Science - T