9 Kilometers of Balloons

Several months ago some News was made by a Physics Experiment, in which the results indicated that neutrinos might be able to travel faster than the speed of light.

But one thing the experimental result depends on is an accurate measurement of the distance between the source of the neutrinos and the detector. They happen to be about 730 kilometers apart, but the experiment requires parts-per-million accuracy of both the distance measurement and the travel-time measurement.

This Idea will focus on making a more accurate distance measurement. Currently the satellite-based Global Positioning System was used to make a measurement that may be wrong by as much as 20 centimeters. This is considered acceptable because a millionth of 730 kilometers is 73 centimeters. But who says we have to be satisfied with that?

Now, you might use laser beams to make distance measurements (we know the distance to the Moon down to a few millimeters, if I recall right, thanks to laser reflectors put there by astronauts). However, here on Earth the atmosphere tends to interfere with long-distance laser measurements. It also directly affects the speed of light, and does so irregularly (density variations in the air). Thus we need a better way!

So, let us start with some fairly stiff and tough plastic, like polycarbonate. Now imagine a large sheet of it, like you go to the lumber yard to get a large sheet of plywood. Now imagine lots of these sheets, equipped with a (formed as part of the plastic) latching system so that the sheets can be connected to make bigger sheets.

Now imagine a secondary latching system so that we can also create an "X" pattern for some of these plastic sheets. That is, the "X" is the edge-on view of the connected sheets. In an office building, such an "X" might form some of the walls of 4 adjacent cubicles.

Now imagine that all these sheets are full of fairly large holes, say 5-10 centimeters in a nice regular hexagonal patterm. This will reduce the weight of the sheets substantially, and allow wind to blow through the holes, yet let the plastic retain most of its strength and rigidity.

Now imagine that some of these large holey plastic sheets have attachment points for cables or ropes. I'll get back to those momentarily.

Finally, we want the dimensions of our "X" pattern to be about 10 meters on each "arm" of the "X". So, 20m long and 20m wide. Now we start attaching sheets to each other, building a nice long 9-kilometer length. This length is somewhat arbitrary, and I'm actually guessing how long we can make it work for this purpose, given the stiffness of a 20-meter "X".

Whatever length we end up using, we MARK it --the whole length!-- like we mark an ordinary ruler. Thus we now have a 9-kilometer measuring stick. We could use it to precisely measure the width of a large town in one step.

We now attach balloons all along the length of our measuring stick, to loft the whole thing somewhat above the trees and various buildings (they do tend to just be in the way, sometimes). Since the ballons are unmanned, they can filled with hydrogen and thus be smaller.

It could be difficult to hold this measuring stick still, the wind is almost always blowing above treetop level. But what you can do, as an alternative, is to anchor one end with guy wires, and let the other end swing past the place on the ground you want to measure.

Now shine a laser beam up from the ground, and record which mark it hits, on the measuring stick, as the wind blows the balloons by, overhead. Do the same thing at the anchored end, of course; we want the stick to simultaneously/momentarily be above both places, so that we can accurately find the distance between them.

All you have to do, now, is repeat this along, say, a Great Circle Route, to accurately find longer distances between two points --such as the relevant locations of that Physics Experiment.