Urgent processing and control of lunar data

There is an urgent, time-critical need to begin tying together (geodetically controlling) all past and current lunar data, and to establish the cartographic foundation needed to make maximum use of future planned lunar data. Proper control of lunar datails required to properly support both lunar science and exploration, and at present we know of no plans within NASA to fund such work adequately. The utility of past and future lunar data will be severely hampered if they cannot be correlated/compared with each other or if the uncertainties in the positional accuracies are not well characterized. Since “required capabilities” and “technology developments” are on the primary list of issues for this workshop [1], it is clear that this issue is not only appropriate but critical to discuss and that strong recommendations must be made to address this problem. This white paper summarizes more detailed discussions that we have presented earlier [2].