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Locally, Fermi normal coordinates are designed to correspond with direct measurement of distances (born rigidity). I also discovered that Synge's book on GR establishes that very locally, radar distance must match Fermi normal distance, but not in general (obviously). What I am wondering is whether there is any conceivable procedure for measuring Fermi normal distance, say at solar system scale? I can't come up with anything other than: if you know the local metric in detail, and track your own acceleration, you can, in principle, convert from a radar ranging distance to a Fermi-normal distance. That is not very practical. Any operational way to do this?