National Academies Press: OpenBook

Geodesy in the Year 2000 (1990)

Chapter: Front Matter

Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 1990. Geodesy in the Year 2000. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1495.
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Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 1990. Geodesy in the Year 2000. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1495.
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Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 1990. Geodesy in the Year 2000. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1495.
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Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 1990. Geodesy in the Year 2000. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1495.
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Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 1990. Geodesy in the Year 2000. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1495.
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Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 1990. Geodesy in the Year 2000. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1495.
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Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 1990. Geodesy in the Year 2000. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1495.
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Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 1990. Geodesy in the Year 2000. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1495.
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Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 1990. Geodesy in the Year 2000. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1495.
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Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 1990. Geodesy in the Year 2000. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1495.
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Below is the uncorrected machine-read text of this chapter, intended to provide our own search engines and external engines with highly rich, chapter-representative searchable text of each book. Because it is UNCORRECTED material, please consider the following text as a useful but insufficient proxy for the authoritative book pages.

[ODE~ IN THE YEAR 2000 amp ~ cow Board on Eartb Sciences and Resources Commission on Physical Sciences, ~alhcmatics, and Rcsourccs National Rcscarcb Council AL KNAUER PRESS shing10n, D.C. 1990 %

NOTICE: The project that is the subject of this report was approved by the Governing Board of the National Research Council, whose members are drawn from the councils of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine. The members of the committee responsible for the report were chosen for their special competences and with regard for appropriate balance. The Overview and Recommendations of this report have been reviewed by a group other than the authors according to procedures approved by a Report Review Committee consisting of members of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine. The contributed papers represent the opinions of their authors only, and appearance in this volume does not constitute endorsement of their conclusions by the National Research Council or the Committee on Geodesy. The National Academy of Sciences is a private, nonprofit, self-perpetuating society of distinguished scholars engaged in scientific and engineering research, dedicated to the furtherance of science and technology and to their use for the general welfare. Upon the authority of the charter granted to it by the Congress in 1863, the Academy has a mandate that requires it to advise the federal government on scientific and technical matters. Dr. Frank Press is president of the National Academy of Sciences. The National Academy of Engineering was established in 1964, under the charter of the National Academy of Sciences, as a parallel organization of outstanding engineers. It is autonomous in its administration and in the selection of its members, sharing with the National Academy of Sciences the responsibility for advising the federal government. The National Academy of Engineering also sponsors engineering programs aimed at meeting national needs, encourages education and research, and recognizes the superior achievements of engineers. Dr. Robert M. White is president of the National Academy of ~ . . engineer 1ng . The Institute of Medicine was established in 1970 by the National Academy of Sciences to secure the services of eminent members of the appropriate professions in the examination of policy matters pertaining to the health of the public. The Institute acts under the responsibility given to the National Academy of Sciences by its congressional charter to be an adviser to the federal government and, upon its own initiative, to identify issues of medical care, research, and education. Dr. Samuel O. Thier is president of the Institute of Medicine. The National Research Council was organized by the National Academy of Sciences in 1916 to associate the broad community of science and technology with the Academy's purposes of furthering knowledge and advising the federal government. Functioning in accordance with general policies determined by the Academy, the Council has become the principal operating agency of both the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering in providing services to the government? the public, and the scientific and engineering communities. The Council is administered jointly by both Academies and The Institute of Medicine. Dr. Frank Press and Dr. Robert M. White are chairman and vice chairman, respectively, of the National Research Council. Support for this project was provided by National Geodetic Survey, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration; Defense Mapping Agency; Air Force Office of Scientific Research; National Aeronautics and Space Administration; and Department of Energy. Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 89-63530 International Standard Book Number 0-309-04145-7 Additional copies of this report are available from National Academy Press 2101 Constitution Avenue, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20418 SOSS Printed in the United States of America

COMMITTEE ON GEODESY JOHN RUNDLE, Sandia National Laboratory, Chairman TIMOTHY H. DIXON, Jet Propulsion Laboratory CLYDE GOAD, Ohio State University ERNEST H. METZGER, Bell Aerospace Textron J. BERNARD MINSTER, University of California, San Diego RICHARD SAILOR, The Analytic Sciences Corporation ROSS STEIN, U.S. Geological Survey S Gaff HYMAN ORLIN, Consultant Lia ~ son Members WILLIAM H. CHAPMAN, U.S. Geological Survey MIRIAM BALTUCK, National Aeronautics and Space Administration DONALD H. ECKHARDT, Air Force Geophysical Laboratory CHARLES HALL, Defense Mapping Agency GEORGE KOLSTAD, U.S. Department of Energy JOHN G. HEACOCK, Office of Naval Research MICHAEL A. MAYHEW, National Science Foundation COL. JERRY PERRIZO, Air Force Office of Scientific Research WILLIAM STRANGE, National Geodetic Survey, NOAA . . .

BOARD ON EARTH SCIENCES AND RESOURCES WILLIAM L. FISHER, University of Texas, Austin, Co-Chairman BRIAN J. SKINNER, Yale University, Co - Chairman SAMUEL S. ADAMS, Colorado School of Mines KEIITI AKI, University of Southern California ALBERT W. BALLY, Rice University JAMES R. BAROFFIO, Chevron Canada Resources Limited SANDRA L. BLACKSTONE, University of Denver DONALD J. DePAOLO, University of California, Berkeley GORDON P. EATON, Iowa State University W. GARY ERNST, Stanford University ROBERT N. GINSBURG, University of Miami ALEXANDER F.H. GOETZ, University of Colorado PRISCILLA C.P. GREW, Minnesota Geological Survey PERRY R. HAGENSTEIN, Resource Issues, Inc. HARRISON C. JAMISON, Atlantic Richfield Exploration Company (Retired) THOMAS H. JORDAN, Massachusetts Institute of Technology CHARLES J. MANKIN, University of Oklahoma CAREL OTTE, Unocal Corporation (Retired) FRANK M. RICHTER, University of Chicago J.J. SIMMONS, III, Interstate Commerce Commission STEVEN M. STANLEY, Johns Hopkins University IRVIN L. WHITE, New York State Energy Research and Development Authority S gaff ROBERT S. LONG, Staff Director BETTY C. GUYOT, Staff Associate 1V

COMMISSION ON PHYSICAL SCIENCES, MATHEMATICS, AND RESOURCES NORMAN HACKERMAN, Robert A. Welch Foundation, Chairman ROBERT C. BEARDSLEY, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution B. CLARK BURCHFIEL, Massachusetts Institute of Technology GEORGE F. CARRIER, Harvard University RALPH J. CICERONE, University of California at Irvine HERBERT D. DOAN, The Dow Chemical Company (retired) PETER S. EAGLESON, Massachusetts Institute of Technology DEAN E. EASTMAN, IBM, T.J. Watson Research Center MARYE ANNE FOX, University of Texas GERHART FRIEDLANDER, Brookhaven National Laboratory LAWRENCE W. FUNKHOUSER, Chevron Corporation (retired) PHILLIP A. GRIFFITHS, Duke University NEAL F. LANE, Rice University CHRISTOPHER F. McKEE, University of California at Berkeley RICHARD S. NICHOLSON, American Association for the Advancement of Science JACK E. OLIVER, Cornell University JEREMIAH P. OSTRIKER, Princeton University Observatory PHILIP A. PALMER, Vanderbilt University DENTS J. PRAGER, MacArthur Foundation DAVID M. RAUP, University of Chicago ROY F. SCHWITTERS, Superconducting Super Collider Laboratory LARRY L. SMARR, National Center for Supercomputing Applications KARL K. TUREKIAN, Yale University MYRON F. UMAN, Acting Executive Director v

Preface During the course of the efforts required by the Committee on Geodesy to assemble this volume, it became clear that the discipline of geodesy is passing through a unique time of opportunity and challenge, in the scientific and technological areas. The advent of space geodetic technology, beginning more than thirty years ago, together with the recent rapid advances in hardware, data processing methods, and computational and modeling techniques, makes clear that after the year 2000, geodesy will be a fundamentally different science from what it was prior to Sputnik. The rapidity and convenience with which it will be possible to gather highly accurate masses of geodetic data will be unprecedented. As a result, a groundswell of interest from many agencies, institutions, and people is steadily building, which is, paradoxically, the source of a number of current difficulties. Geodesy is becoming a truly global science, both in the technical, as well as in the political, sense. For example, many of the new observational technologies require the nearly continuous tracking of artificial earth artificial earth satellites. And, since the earth's topography and gravity field are continuous across all political and geographic boundaries, mapping them requires careful integration of data collected by various survey techniques in different countries and physiographic regions. These tasks can only be carried out with cooperation among many countries. Moreover, many of the scientific problems of interest, one of which is the study of earthquakes for the purpose of mitigation of seismic hazard, are international in scope. It is against the backdrop of an evolving international space technology that this report, Geodesy in the Year 2000, should be viewed. The Committee on Geodesy, recognizing the critical nature of this transitional period, sponsored a session at the fall 1987 American Geophysical Union meeting to highlight the opportunities the immediate future holds for scientific and technical progress. The speakers at that session were asked to contribute papers to this volume. The Overview and Recommendations, prepared by the Committee on Geodesy, are based upon these papers, some of which were updated following the meetings at Erice, Sicily, and Coolfont, West Virginia, described below, and the deliberations of the committee. Following the 1987 American Geophysical Union meeting, a workshop entitled "The Interdisciplinary Role of Space Geodesy" was organized by the International School of Geodesy of the E. Majorana Centre for Scientific Culture and held in Erice, Sicily, during the period July 23-29, 1988, at which more than 100 representatives from a variety of nations convened to discuss the scientific and technological challenges that confront us. The result of that workshop is a lengthy document (Mueller and Zerbini, 1989), outlining where the international NT11

community currently stands, both scientifically and technologically, as well as likely directions for future research. As a complement to this effort, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) organized a similar workshop at Coolfont, West Virginia, during July 1989, to plan the NASA space-geodesy program for the period spanning 1991-2002. This period of time, which immediately follows the termination of the highly successful NASA Crustal Dynamics Project, encompasses a critical transitional period for the disciplines of geodynamics and geology. During this interval, it is expected that the Earth Observing System, and the associated Mission to Planet Earth, will become operational, presaging an era in which the earth will be studied from an integrated systems viewpoint. The result of the Coolfont meeting will be a program plan, budget, and strategy for implementing an integrated NASA program. John B. Rundle, Chairman Committee on Geodesy . . . vie ~

Contents OVERVIEW AND RECOMMENDATIONS CONTRIBUTED PAPERS Geodesy in the Year 2000 John B . Rundl e . An Historical Perspective Implications of Precise Positioning Jean -B ernard H . Mins ter, Thomas H . Jordan, Bradford H . Hager, Duncan C . Agnew, and Leigh H. Royden If Only We Had Better Gravity Data. Marcia McNu t t Common Interests in Geodetic and Oceanographic Research Vic tor Zlotnicki Lasers for Geodesy in the Year 2000 Davi d E . Smi th Seafloor Geodesy by the Year 2000 F.N. Spiess The Accuracy of Position Determinations by VLBI Expected by the Year 2000 Alan E. E. Rogers 1 7 9 23 53 85 91 100 114 GPS-Based Geodesy Tracking: Technology Prospects for the Year 2000 124 W. G. Melbourne 1X i

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Geodesy has undergone technological and theoretical changes of immense proportions since the launching of Sputnik. The accuracy of current satellite geodetic data has approached the centimeter level and will improve by one or two orders of magnitude over the next decade. This bodes well for the application of geodetic data to the solution of problems in solid earth, oceanic and atmospheric sciences. The report Geodesy in the Year 2000 addresses many areas of investigation that will benefit from this improvement in accuracy.

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