On Mon 2008-02-11T10:40:32 -0800, Steve Allen hath writ: > On Mon 2008-02-11T13:31:17 +0000, Tony Finch hath writ: > > Surely its work on the ITRF is still needed for satellite navigation. > > Agreed, but somehow I get the impression that will not catch the > attention of legislators and bureaucrats nearly as well as pointing > out that their earth rotation measurements directly affect how they > set their watches. I expect the IERS would lose a lot of visibility > and political clout without leap seconds.
Upon further consideration, I'm not sure I agree. For the purposes of satellite navigation there is not need for the terrestrial reference frame to be tightly tied to the celestial reference frame. Achieving accuracy of 1 meter certainly doesn't care about rapid changes of earth orientation parameters with respect to the quasars, only with respect to the satellites. So it could be argued that the need for VLBI campaigns would become a scientific extravagance no longer relevant to civil life. -- Steve Allen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> WGS-84 (GPS) UCO/Lick Observatory Natural Sciences II, Room 165 Lat +36.99855 University of California Voice: +1 831 459 3046 Lng -122.06015 Santa Cruz, CA 95064 http://www.ucolick.org/~sla/ Hgt +250 m _______________________________________________ LEAPSECS mailing list [email protected] http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/leapsecs
