In article ,
Skywise wrote:

It's all about signal-to-noise ratio. It might interest you to
know that astronomers still bounce lasers off the reflectors
that were placed on the Moon by Apollo astronauts. They use
high powered lasers and use telescopes to detect the return
signal. Even though the lasers are 10's of watts or more, the
amount of light detected is measured in number of photons.

Any favorite or recommended publications on these lunar ranging
experiments?

(Either seriously technical archival-journal-level articles, or good
quality Scientific American or Popular Mechanics level articles -- but
preferably well-illustrated and available on line.)

--
"For the fact is that much of the financial industry has become
a racket ‹ a game in which a handful of people are lavishly paid
to mislead and exploit consumers and investors. And if we don¹t
lower the boom on these practices, the racket will just go on."
-- Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman, 18 April 2010