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.

Inhalt

Maurice Ewing and the Exploration of the Oceans (Dedicatory address).- Mathematical Modelling of Lunar Laser Measures and their Application to Improvement of Physical Parameters.- I - Lunar Science.- Scientific Expectations in the Selenosciences.- Present Scientific Achievements from Lunar Laser Ranging.- Lunar Dynamics and Selenodesy: Results from Analysis of VLBI and Laser Data.- Free Librations of the Moon from Lunar Laser Ranging.- A Numerical Study of the Effects of Fourth Degree Terms in the Earth-Moon Mutual Potential on Lunar Physical Librations.- Analytical Theory for the Rotation of the Moon.- II - Gravitation.- Verification of the Principle of Equivalence for Massive Bodies.- Consequence of Integral Conservation Laws on Metric Parameters in the Analysis of the Nordtvedt Effect.- III - Geophysics and Geodesy.- Whole Earth Dynamics and Lunar Laser Ranging.- Core-Resonance Effects on the Earth's Angular Momentum Vector and Rotation Axis - A Generalized Model.- Effects of Oceanic Tides on the Rotation of the Earth.- Dynamics of Polar Motion and Plate Tectonics.- The Role of Extremely Accurate Surveying Techniques in Existing Geodetic Networks.- An Intermediate Term Strategy for Deployment of Mobile Laser Stations.- Suggested Pacific Plate Distortion Experiments.- IV - Observation of Earth Rotation.- On the Problems of the Astrometric Methods and of the Lunar Laser Ranging in the Study of the Earth's Rotation.- Earth Rotation Study Using Lunar Laser Ranging Data.- Earth Rotation as Inferred from McDonald Observatory Lunar Laser Observations during October 1975.- Accuracy Obtainable for Universal Time and Polar Motion during the Erold Campaign.- McDonald Uto Results and Implications for the Erold Campaign.- Universal Time: Lunar Ranging Results and Comparisons with VLBI and Classical Techniques.- V - Complementary Observations.- A Review of Perturbing Parameters which Affect the Quality of Laser Distance Measurements.- Tidal Corrections at McDonald and Haleakala.- Strategy for Geophysical Observations at Laser Sites - McDonald Observatory.- The Deformational Environment of the Haleakala Lunar Laser Ranging Observatory.- 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.- Geodesy by Radio Interferometry.- Alsep-Quasar VLBI: Complementary Observable for Laser Ranging.- Laser Ranging Techniques Required to Test Dirac's Cosmological Model.