The difference is the light gathering size. The larger the aperture, the smaller the resolved object that we can look at. For example, looking at the central

The difference is the light gathering size. The larger the aperture, the smaller the resolved object that we can look at. For example, looking at the central black hole of M87 which is on the order of "diameter of the solar system" ( https://xkcd.com/2135/ https://xkcd.com/2135/ ). However, the only reason we are able to resolve it is that it is so bright. But if you want to look at dim objects, then the area of the light gathering is the important value. That is why Arecibo was so important ( https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2005AAS...207.2907D/abstract https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2005AAS...207.2907D/abstra... ) For the HSA - it used the largest of the radio dishes available - https://science.nrao.edu/facilities/vlba/HSA https://science.nrao.edu/facilities/vlba/HSA The Green Bank Telescope 100m and the Effelsberg 100m telescopes are much more sensitive than the VLA... but the VLA can resolve 0.2 and 0.04 overall. So yes, we could send up a bunch of 3m space telescopes out to the L2 point - but how many individual miniature instruments are we going to need to make for each, how much propellant will be needed for each, how will you keep the cold side cold (size matters)? While I'm not a rocket scientist, I'm not sure that those are easy problems to solve... and I feel like they're much harder problems to solve than ones that the JWST and the current line of telescope proposals have.