AbstractIt is suggested that the development of the SKA will drastically change the face of radio astronomy in the 21 st Century. A FAST-style SKA would admit observations of low contrast features, and would be the best design for studying the ‘dark ages’ of the Universe (x » 1) where sub-arcmin total power instruments can usefully be employed. To date there have been no proposals for post-SKA, billion square-metra instruments; we speculate that mobile communication systems can be used. In the very distant future, SKA multi-beam systems could be used to collect signals reflected by Solar system bodies such as the asteroid belt.