That may be closer than your think (except for the moon bit, space is hard). See LOFAR: http://www.lofar.org/about-lofar/about-lofar "LOFAR is the first telescope of this new sort, using an array of simple omni-directional antennas instead of mechanical signal processing with a dish antenna. The electronic signals from the antennas are digitised, transported to a central digital processor, and combined in software to emulate a conventional antenna. "