Check out the Allen array:

Allen Array


They are attempting to build just such a device using radio telescopes at Hat Creek. The processing power required to do this with optical telescopes is probably exponentially greater (just a guess) but I bet it would be possible to link up a half dozen or so optical telescopes this way without too much effort as long as you knew where they are in relationship to each other "very" accurately and they all had very precise tracking so as to point at the same object and you could correct for atmospheric distortions over a huge area.

This would be much easier to do in space I think since the atmospheric distortions would not throw off the alignment. Perhaps someone could launce some small automated telescopes to operate from the surface of the moon and then people could crunch the data from these telescopes at home.

One thing to consider though is the light gathering ability of this kind of telescope is not as good as if you had a lense as wide as the separation distance so you would only collect as much light as the sum of the surface areas of the telescopes that you use.

J. Scott Berry
Physics Graduate Student
Oregon State University