Time zones will soon include outer space if the White House has its way. In a Tuesday memo, NASA was told to create a standard time for the moon by the end of 2026.
The Biden administration refers to it as Coordinated Lunar Time, or LTC.
Synchronizing future equipment and personnel on the moon with NASA on Earth requires LTC, because relativity and gravity warp how time here is perceived in space.
The “length of a second defined on Earth will appear distorted to an observer under different gravitational conditions, or to an observer moving at a high relative velocity. For example, to an observer on the moon, an Earth-based clock will appear to lose on average 58.7 microseconds per Earth-day with additional periodic variations,” the memo explains.
There are 1,000,000 microseconds in one second.
NASA officials compared the situation to the U.S. Naval Observatory, which keeps a localized measure of UTC, or Coordinated Universal Time.
“Think of the atomic clocks at the U.S. Naval Observatory (in Washington). They’re the heartbeat of the nation, synchronizing everything. You’re going to want a heartbeat on the moon,” Kevin Coggins, NASA’s chief of space communications and navigation, told Reuters.
• Brad Matthews can be reached at bmatthews@washingtontimes.com.
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