Measuring The Distance From Earth To Moon

lewiz writes: "Tom Murphy at UW is attempting to measure the distance between the Earth and The Moon to the nearest millimetre according to this BBC News article. 'His tape measure will be a giant telescope at Apache Point in New Mexico. Retroreflectors left on the surface of the Moon by various space missions, including the Apollo 11 lunar landing, will also come in handy.'"

Comments

Oddly Enough...

[CheshireCatCO]

... according to my Solar Systems Dynamics textbook, we already know the rate at which the Moon is receding from the Earth: 1 nanometer/second. Which is, of course, a better precision than this group seeks to take on. But that measurement probably used the Doppler shift. It just goes to show that it's much easier to measure radial velocities than distances!

Re:Oddly Enough...

[p3d0]

Bzzztt. The speed that the moon receeds wasn't measured directly, especially by doppler shift of all things. It was calculated from the kinetic energy gained by the moon from the Earth from tidal forces.

Umm, the distance isn't constant

[DeafDumbBlind]

The moon revolves around the earth in an eliptical orbit, not a circular one. Unless he's talking about getting the average distance.

Alternative Solution

[nurightshu]

...Check the Odometer on the Apollo 11 capsule.

But my old encylopedia...

[heliocentric]

My old encylopedia says it's precisely 300,000 km and it also says that "someday we hope to go there."

All that and the Kaiser Wilhelm still doesn't know what to do with his country.

Wipe-cut to the next scene...

[Tony Shepps]

...his wife [sobbing]: "Dammit Tom! You could measure how far it was to the moon! But you couldn't see the distance between... between US!

Mooting points.

[blair1q]

- The moon's orbit about the Earth is a 100-page equation, not a constant.

- The Earth's rotation is not circular (it "sloshes").

- The Earth's shape is not constant.

- The Earth's mass is not constant, so the general relativistic field in which the moon orbits is not constant.

- Okay, so we know where that telescope is relative to the moon. Now where is it relative to my house? To Washington? To Wendy's?

- Isn't this just an attempt by the Bush White House to wag the dog to distract attention from the fistfight the President and Vice President had during the game Sunday?

--Blair

Reflectors on the moon? It's a lie !!!

[bani]

... according to Bart Sibrel :D

To sum up: "we never went to the moon, hence there are no reflectors on the moon."

Moderators: Put down the crack pipe and the mouse. Step away from the keyboard. Take a DEEP BREATH and READ. This is not a troll. I repeat. This is not a troll.

No, I don't believe the "moon hoax" loonies. Anyone with an above-kindergarten education can easily refute the "moon hoax" loonies claims.

For your amusement, this is the gallery of the 'barking mad'...

Some anonymous kook
Bill Kaysing
Ken Overstreet
"mpeeters"

Another totally worthless experiments

[trenton]

How about this one: build a clock that can be taken to sea. What good is that? We already have accurate clock on the shore. Oh, right, you can figure out your latitude. And, in the process, invent roller bearings and bimetallic strips, two extremely useful technologies, ones we weren't even trying to create. That turned out well for us, huh?

The moon distance measurement is obviously good. It seeks to do something no one else has ever achived. Even if the results aren't interesting, the new techniques used are. Anyone that doesn't see its intrinsic value is shortsighted.