A far-infrared/submillimeter kilometer-baseline interferometer in space

Through the continuing development of improved detectors and detector arrays, far-infrared/submillimeter astronomical space missions have had enormous successes in recent years. Despite these advances, the diffraction-limited angular resolving power has remained virtually constant. The advent of telescopes with apertures of several meters, will improve the situation, but will still leave image resolution many orders of magnitude poorer than in most other spectral ranges. After making the scientific case for high spatial resolution imaging in this spectral range, and the use of interferometry as the most immediate way of producing results, we review the use of far-infrared/submillimeter interferometers to provide insight on the formation of the first stars.