Scientific Applications of Lunar Laser Ranging: Proceedings of a Symposium Held in Austin, Tex., U.S.A., 8 – 10 June, 1976 PDF
Preview Scientific Applications of Lunar Laser Ranging: Proceedings of a Symposium Held in Austin, Tex., U.S.A., 8 – 10 June, 1976
SCIENTIFIC APPLICATIONS OF LUNAR LASER RANGING ASTROPHYSICS AND SPACE SCIENCE LIBRARY A SERIES OF BOOKS ON THE RECENT DEVELOPMENTS OF SPACE SCIENCE AND OF GENERAL GEOPHYSICS AND ASTROPHYSICS PUBLISHED IN CONNECTION WITH THE JOURNAL SPACE SCIENCE REVIEWS Editorial Board J. E. BLAMONT, Laboratoire d'Aeronomie, Verrieres, France R. L. F. BOYD, University College, London, England L. GOLDBERG, Kitt Peak National Observatory, Tucson, Ariz., U.S.A. C. DE JAGER, University of Utrecht, Holland Z. KOPAL, University of Manchester, Manchester, England G. H. LUDWIG, NOAA, National Environmental Satellite Service, Suitland, Md., U.S.A. R. LUST, President Max-Planck-Gesellschaft zur F8rderung der Wissenschaften, Milnchen, F.R. G. B. M. MCCORMAC, Lockheed Palo Alto Research Laboratory, Palo Alto, Calif., U.S.A. H. E. NEWELL, NASA, Washington, D.C., U.S.A. L. I. SEDOV, Academy of Sciences of the U.S.S.R., Moscow, U.S.S.R. Z. SVESTKA,American Science and Engineering, Cambridge, Mass., U.S.A. VOLUME 62 PROCEEDINGS SCIENTIFIC APPLICATIONS OF LUNAR LASER RANGING PROCEEDINGS OF A SYMPOSIUM HELD IN AUSTIN, TEX., U.S.A., 8 - 10 JUNE, 1976 haited by J. DERRAL MULHOLLAND University of Texas at Austin, Tex., U.S.A. Associate Editors: Creighton A. Burk, University of Texas Marine Science Institute Eric C. Silverberg, University of Texas McDonald Observatory With a Foreword by Neil A. Armstrong Sponsored by: THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS, THE INTERNATIONAL UNION OF GEODESY AND GEOPHYSICS, THE INTERNATIONAL ASTRONOMICAL UNION AND THE ICSU COMMITTEE ON SPACE RESEARCH D. REIDEL PUBLISHING COMPANY DORDRECHT-HOLLAND / BOSTON-U.S.A. ISBN-\3: 978-94-010-1210-2 e-ISBN-13: 978-94-010-1208-9 DOl: 10.1007/978-94-010-1208-9 Published by D. Reidel Publishing Company. P.O. Box 17. Dordrecht. Holland Sold and distributed in the U.S.A .• Canada and Mexico by D. Reidel Publishing Company. Inc. Lincoln Building. 160 Old Derby Street. Hingham, Mass. 02043. U.S.A. All Rights Reserved Copyright ©1977 by D. Reidel Publishing Company. Dordrecht. Holland Softcover reprint of the hardcover I st edition 1977 No part of the material protected by this copyright notice may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means. electronic or mechanical including photocopying. recording or by any informational storage and, retrieval system, without written permission from the copyright owner TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE IX FOREWORD XIII LIST OF PARTICIPANTS XV J. Dorman and G. V. Latham MAURICE EWING AND THE EXPLORATION OF THE OCEANS (Dedicatory address) J. D. Mulholland MATHEMATICAL MODELLING OF LUNAR LASER MEASURES AND THEIR APPLICATION TO IMPROVEMENT OF PHYSICAL PARAMETERS PART I - LUNAR SCIENCE J. Kovalevsky SCIENTIFIC EXPECTATIONS IN THE SELENOSCIENCES 21 J. G. Williams PRESENT SCIENTIFIC ACHIEVEMENTS FROM LUNAR LASER RANGING 37 R. W. King, C. C. Counselman III, and I. I. Shapiro LUNAR DYNAMICS AND SELENODESY: RESULTS FROM ANALYSIS OF VLBI AND LASER DATA 51 O. Calame FREE LIBRATIONS OF THE MOON FROM LUNAR LASER RANGING 53 W. J. Breedlove, Jr. A NUMERICAL STUDY OF THE EFFECTS OF FOURTH DEGREE TERMS IN THE EARTH-MOON MUTUAL POTENTIAL ON LUNAR PHYSICAL LIBRATIONS 65 A. Migus ANALYTICAL THEORY FOR THE ROTATION OF THE MOON 79 VI TABLE OF CONTENTS PART II - GRAVITATION I. I. Shapiro, C. C. Counselman III, and R. W. King VERIFICATION OF THE PRINCIPLE OF EQUIVALENCE FOR MASSIVE BODIES 89 L. L. Smalley CONSEQUENCE OF INTEGRAL CONSERVATION LAWS ON METRIC PARAMETERS IN THE ANALYSIS OF THE NORDTVEDT EFFECT 91 PART III - GEOPHYSICS AND GEODESY D. E. Smylie WHOLE EARTH DYNAMICS AND LUNAR LASER RANGING 105 P. McClure CORE-RESONANCE EFFECTS ON THE EARTH'S ANGULAR MOMENTUM VECTOR AND ROTATION AXIS - A GENERALIZED MODEL 131 P. Brosche and J. Sundermann EFFECTS OF OCEANIC TIDES ON THE ROTATION OF THE EARTH 133 R. O. Vicente DYNAMICS OF POLAR MOTION AND PLATE TECTONICS 143 S. W. Henriksen THE ROLE OF EXTREMELY ACCURATE SURVEYING TECHNIQUES IN EXISTING GEODETIC NETWORKS 149 G. V. Latham and H. J. Dorman AN INTERMEDIATE TERM STRATEGY FOR DEPLOYMENT OF MOBILE LASER STATIONS 157 P. L. Bender and J. E. Faller SUGGESTED PACIFIC PLATE DISTORTION EXPERIMENTS 167 PART IV - OBSERVATION OF EARTH ROTATION B. Kolaczek ON THE PROBLEMS OF THE ASTROMETRIC METHODS AND OF THE LUNAR LASER RANGING IN THE STUDY OF THE EARTH'S ROTATION 171 A. W. Harris and J. G. Williams EARTH ROTATION STUDY USING LUNAR LASER RANGING DATA 179 P. J. Shelus, S. W. Evans, and J. D.Mulholland EARTH ROTATION AS INFERRED FROM McDONALD OBSERVATORY LUNAR LASER OBSERVATIONS DURING OCTOBER 1975 191 TABLE OF CONTENTS VII A. Stolz and D. Larden ACCURACY OBTAINABLE FOR UNIVERSAL TIME AND POLAR MOTION DURING THE EROLD CAMPAIGN 201 P. L. Bender and A. Stolz McDONALD UTO RESULTS AND IMPLICATIONS FOR THE EROLD CAMPAIGN 217 R. W. King, T. A. Clark, C. C. Counselman III, D. S. Robertson, I. I. Shapiro, and C. A. Knight UNIVERSAL TIME: LUNAR RANGING RESULTS AND COMPARISONS WITH VLBI AND CLASSICAL TECHNIQUES 219 PART V - COMPLEMENTARY OBSERVATIONS P. Morgan A REVIEW OF PERTURBING PARAMETERS WHICH AFFECT THE QUALITY OF LASER DISTANCE MEASUREMENTS 223 J. T. Kuo TIDAL CORRECTIONS AT McDONALD AND HALEAKALA 241 J. Dorman and G. V. Latham STRATEGY FOR GEOPHYSICAL OBSERVATIONS AT LASER SITES - McDONALD OBSERVATORY 255 E. Berg and G. H. Sutton THE DEFORMATIONAL ENVIRONMENT OF THE HALEAKALA LUNAR LASER RANGING OBSERVATORY 263 J. E. Faller and J. Levine THE MEASUREMENT OF THE POSITIONS OF POINTS ON THE EARTH'S SURFACE USING AN ABSOLUTE GRAVIMETER AND A MULTI-WAVELENGTH GEODIMETER AS COMPLEMENTS TO EXTRATERRESTRIAL TECHNIQUES 277 C. C. Counselman III GEODESY BY RADIO INTERFEROMETRY 285 M. A. Slade, W. S. Sinclair, A. W. Harris, R. A. Preston, and.J. G. Williams ALSEP-QUASAR VLBI: COMPLEMENTARY OBSERVABLE FOR LASER RANGING 287 J. L. Hughes LASER RANGING TECHNIQUES REQUIRED TO TEST DIRAC'S COSMOLOGICAL MODEL 289 IX PREFACE The progress of science during the past centuries has been in some measure energized by the development of new technologies. People are no more intelligent now than they were five centuries ago, or indeed five millenia ago. The differences are in the pool of past experience and the availability of means for manipulating the physical and mental environment. Until fairly recently, the development of new technologies in astronomy and geodesy has served primarily either to broaden the scope of phenomena that could be studied or to improve the precision with which one could examine already-studied phenomena. There seemed to be no likelihood that a situation could arise similar to that in particle physics, where the uncertainty principle indicates that the observation of the state of an object alters that state, affecting the observation. Indeed, we have not yet reached that point, but certain of the new techniques have introduced a degree of complication and inter dependence perhaps not previously encountered in the macro sciences. When observational capability is so fine that the data can be corrupted by the tidal motions of the instruments, for example, then there are a myriad of physical effects that must be considered in analyzing the data; the happy aspect of this is that the data can be used to study exactly these same effects. The complication does not, however, extend only to predictive computations against which the data are compared. The non-linear intereactions between different effects require that the complication be extended to the process of determining empirical values of physically-interesting parameters. With such data, it is no longer possible to study single phenomena in isolation. Even if one's goal is to study a celestial object, it is necessary also to study the Earth; even if one's goal is to study the Earth, it is necessary also to study some celestial object. When observations can be made with decimetric or centimetric accuracy, then astronomy, geophysics, and geodesy are no longer distinct and separate subjects, if indeed they ever were. Several techniques now exist that fit this description, based x PREFACE on some application of either radio-frequency interferometry or of optical radar. One of these techniques was born when, more than a dozen years ago, James E. Faller (then a graduaLe student) suggested that relativistic theories of gravitation could be tested by time delay measurements between Ea~th and Moon, using very short laser pulses in conjunction wi~h retro reflectors emplanted on the lunar surface. The idea was not greeted with immediate enthusiasm, but eventually a group of scientists proposed that it be incorporated in~o the Apollo Project. It was accepted,and the phrase "lun~r laser ranging" (LLR) went into the scientific language. Since that time, five reflector arrays have been deposited on the lunar surface, three in the course of Apollo activity and two on Lunakhod roving vehicles. At this writing, ranging operations have been attempted from nine sites in five countries. New facilities are being tested or constructed at three of these 'sites, as well as one replacement site. Although there is only one station currently producing data on a sustained ,near-daily basis, it is reasonable to suppose that the immediate future will see a fully-operational network of five to seven fixed stations, working in conjunction with one or more mobile stations that can be used for periodic geodetic surveys of a few tens of geophysically interesting sites. The data that have been collected in the past seven years have already led to significant improvements in the understanding of some aspects of the Earth-Moon system, and the' promise for even more important developments in the future seems evident. What is more evident is that LLR is arrived at a turning point with the establishment of the global network now building. Until now, the problems and the discoveries have been largely astronomical; in future, they will be largely geophysical. The primary purposes of this symposium were to assess the uses to which the data acquired by this technique have ,already been put, and to address the directions to be sought in the future. I believe that the papers in this collectio~ ~eflect adequ~tely both the breadth and the depth of the discu~sions that took place, even though proceedings of a conference are nearly always a poor surrogate for the actual interactions that take place under such circumstances. For my own part, I have been much honored to have been able to guide the symposium to its successful conclusion, and I am grateful to those who have made it possible. After several years of nearly total involvement in LLR activities, my own role in this area is now much diminished, but the interest remains. Independently of my own participation, I believe that the technique has shown a very powerful cap~city to deal with a certain class of physical problem, the class being best de fined by the papers in this collection. I am content to have PREFACE XI made some contribution to this process. I wish to thank those who have powered the LLR activity during its formative years: in particular, our conscience R. H. Dicke, our evangelist C. O. Alley, our motive force P. L. Bender, and our programmatic bulwark A. T. Strickland. Without these people and their efforts, there would be no LLR program. Many others, of course, have made vital contributions, and here I must confess that I am not aware of all of them. One must cite, however, the support over many years of J.-C. Husson, leading to the French construction of the Lunakhod reflectors. The IUGG/COSPAR/IAU symposium "Scientific Applications of Lunar Laser Ranging" was held in Austin, Texas, from 8 to 10 June 1976, at the invitation of Dr. H. J. Smith, Chairman of the University of Texas Astronomy Department and the Director of the McDonald Observatory. The Scientific Organizing Committee included Drs. E. M. Gaposchkin, B. Guinot, Yu. L. Kokurin, B. Ko1aczek, G. V. Latham, P. Morgan, J. D. Mulholland (Chairman), and E. C. Silverberg. The Local Organizing Committee consisted of Dr. C. A. Burk, Prof. D. S. Evans (Chairman), Mr. C. E. Jenkins, Dr. G. V. Latham, Dr. J. D. Mulholland (Secretary), Dr. E. C. Silverberg (Vice-Chairman), Prof. H. J. Smith, and Ms. J. Strong (Coordinator). The symposium was supported financially by the IUGG and the IAU. The preparation of the proceedings for publication was subsidized by the University of "Texas, thanks to the interven tion of Vice-President H. E. Sutton. The splendidly-handled physical arrangements were made by J. Strong, while the most difficult task of assuring the physical homogeneity of the contributions to the proceedings was dispatched most admirably by N. Otto. Without the latter two, the meeting would have been a shambles, and the present book would not exist; I cannot adequately express my gratitude to them. Finally, I must say that I have enjoyed a happy degree of cooperation from the associate editors, as well as with the majority of the authors. I thank them and all of the many other people who have contri buted to the organization and conduct of the symposium and to the production of these proceedings. J. Derra1 Mulholland Austin September 1976
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