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European Space Agency Developing GPS Rival
nbrimhall writes "The International Herald Tribune has a story here about the European Space Agency's plans to create a alternative to the U.S. controlled GPS. It includes some interesting information regarding the cost and possible contributors (including Canada and Russia)."
Why create a competing system? Are there flaws in existing GPS? I'm honestly curious, someone explain to me why someone would go through the time/money/trouble to create a competing system.
Go Lakers!
I suppose that having cell phones on different standards wasn't enough... now we have to have our GPS'es on different standards too?
libertarianswag.com
There's really no need to build your own GPS network. It's easy enough (for a foreign country) to get the accuracy they need by using differential GPS. Very simplified, you put several GPSes (or their antennae) in different places, take readings and figure out the average location.
Instead of GPS, I think we should work on developing IPS (Interstellar Positioning System) We could do it with current GPS technology, just face the dishes away from the Earth... lose something on accuracy and we'd need a new coordinate system for space, but hey, we're gonna need it anyway in a few hundred years.
__________________________________________
Take comfort in your ignorance.
Grandmaster Plague
Hopefully this will create a surplus of receivers and these things will become cheaper for the average user.
Actually, I've heard that GPS is in fact controlled by the U.S. Dept. of Defense, who could use it for their own purposes. It that's the case, then Europe might be taking a prudent strategy.
I can see the comericals for the new system, there going to have Queen's Bohemian Rapsody playing: Galileo, Galileo, Galileo, magnifico... oh, oh, ohh, oh, oh, oh, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no mama mi-ia, mama-mi-ia, mama-mi-ia let me go...
You know who I think is crazy? All my ex-girlfriends!
Looking at the article, am I to understand that they are trying to make a subscription alternative to GPS? Maybe I am just a trusting American, but does it really make sense to pay a monthly subscription fee 'just in case' America decides to turn off the GPS system?
Damn.. the last time they contributed to something they had to send an american to space and spend his money.
I believe the Soviet Union once launched a system of satellites called GLONASS that worked like GPS. Are they planning to do an upgrade or repair of this system? The GPS FAQ has more information (see section 5.2).
Heck, it's understandable why they'd want to build an alternative GPS; the US Department of Defense could suddenly decide to turn selective availability back on again if they felt like it someday...
Qu'on me donne six lignes écrites de la main du plus honnête homme, j'y trouverai de quoi le faire pendre.
Galileo is attempt to get around the "what if" questions however if the US shuts down the public GPS system, its also going to take out Glonass and any other location system.
When GPS was designed, they added a fudge factor in that would only allow civil recivers to get get a short term fix of about 100m but the military recivers should have been able to get under 10m but because of R&D money on the civil side, the non-military recivers would give much better results than the over priced military ones. With good differental systems you can now get sub meter precision and the fudge factor is pointless and has been turned off. It was the fudge factor that started the Galileo project in the first place.
I don't see Galileo going anywhere. It is a user pay system so are you going to use the euro system where you get to pay $30/yr on top of the reciver or the GPS system where its free thanks to the US tax payers? There will also be the problem that GPS recivers are commodity item and Galileo recivers won't be for at least a decade. Europe would be much better off provide a WAAS compatable sat system than doing their own GPS.
But, it's a free world! If the Europeans want to waste $3.6 billion (give or take another billion or two), they should go ahead! Higher taxes in Europe, increasing the attractiveness of American goods! If they waste enough, American manufacturers can stay on top of the economic battles for another generation!
BTW, paid vs. free doesn't always matter. Look at the world's largest software monopoly, and all the PCs everybody's going to buy this Christmas loaded with what operating system? (But just in case, maybe Garmin just needs to start contributing to some political campaigns on the other side of the pond...)
They have Canadarm now! They're unstoppable!
Friends don't let friends use multiple inheritance.
The Europeans can't do anything which requires cooperation... What about ESA, the european space agency.. isn't that cooperation bettwen the European states, the European Commission.. ect
Carpe meam simiam!
evil American GPS signals!
Not that I have a problem with a parallel system. More power to anyone who wants to go for it, but "U.S. dominion" seems like kind of a silly justification.
"An unarmed man can only flee from evil, and evil is not overcome by fleeing from it." Col. Jeff Cooper
Let me see; EU, EC, WEU, EFTA, NATO, ESA, UEFA, etc. etc. You're ill-informed.
Now i know why they have Anonymous Coward. I hate to start a flame war. But if anything makes someone a "hill-billy" its bad grammar. Your lacking a noun.. whats "it"? And not to be offtopic the international space station is another example of cooperation.
Carpe meam simiam!
IIRC. I have a fairly low-end GPS receiver and I can regularly get accuracy within about 12-15 feet. To get any better, I think you need more expensive equipment, the acronym DGPS comes to mind, but I can't remember exactly what that is. I think it has to do with using two receivers to get a more accurate position.
It might be cheaper for everyone if the US agreed to make GPS an accurate, permanent system, independent of political events.
Becuase anytime real GPS gets scrambled, the US would probably also take any rival system down by force.
Would you like to be in an airliner that makes a 100m vertical postioning error in foggy weather ?
This is not a signature.
The rest of the world pays the US (say) $3B, and the US relinquishes any capability for military control of the system. As was pointed out elsewhere, there's no strong US military argument for retaining control over GPS transmissions. This would avoid most of that wasted EU investment, and the US would get some of its R&D investment back at a time when cash would come in handy. There's no reason I can think of that we need multiple incompatible geopositioning systems around this planet.
:)
Come to think of it, bundle in a satellite warning system while we're at it, and make the whole package available to all nations.
-- We all have enough strength to endure the misfortunes of other people. La Rochefoucauld
Currently, when you use a GPS, the longer you stand still the more accurate it gets. This is because it can average out the errors that occur over time. However, once you start moving, it can't do that, because it has a hard time telling movements from measurement errors.
If on the other hand, they included an accelerometer in the GPS unit they could tell with great precision which changes were due to movements, and which were due to errors. Thus, with some algorithm changes, such a GPS unit could continue to refine its measurements to greater and greater precision as long as it was turned on, even if it was moving about.
Ideally, the accelerometer would be integrated on to the same chip as the GPS or Galeon reciever, along with the logic for coorelating the results as well. Accelerometers can be built entirely on-chip, so no extra parts would be needed. I believe modern accelerometers can achieve high accuracy over a very wide range of accelerations using just 2 square millimeters of chip area, so this shouldn't add much to the manufacturing cost.
This would also increase safety in a number of ways. If an airplane in flight lost GPS signal, perhaps due to flying into a low narrow valley, it could continue to navigate electronically for a while (albiert with less precision) using only the accelerometer. If for some reason the GPS or Galeon network became suddenly unavailable due to unforseen circumstances (US goverment getting pissed off, technical issues, bizarre weather, interference, terrorists, etc.), critical systems would have a little extra time to deal with the situation before global positioning equipment failed completely.
Does this make sense to people? Think it's a good idea / bad idea?
...is that a European system will be technically superior, but flawed in implementation.
Probably something like a "GPS Tax" (think about it for a moment).
The end result will be a system that no one will use.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
It might be cheaper to do navigation by sending out navigation signals on the major communications satellites. This won't provide global coverage, but it would cover all the places you can get satellite TV broadcasts. I'm surprised that INMARSAT doesn't do this as a matter of course.
The US and Europe are friendly tward each other when it comes to anything important. I mean it's not like Europe is going to be fighting a war against the US any time soon (or not so soon).
I can see some country like Iraq or China having good reasons for their own independant GPS system, but not Europe, they're more likely than anyone to be sided with the US during any event that may call for decreased GPS accuracy.
The article is called "Rivals Mobilize Alternatives to U.S. System." What are they thinking? The USA has far too great an interest as global trade is concerned to turn off GPS. The FAA has approved GPS for IFR navigation. People take the handheld units virtually everywhere. I don't see that anyone would let the DoD just turn off the system. [sarcasm] Like I'm going to pay for a Galileo signal when I get GPS for free, not to mention installed base. [/sarcasm] Too many people rely upon GPS. While it seems wise to make an alternative, it benefits few to none, excepting those that make the birds and as a deterrant to the US turning off GPS.
Summary: Expensive, bad idea.
Like building a competing system that has the secondary capability of jamming GPS? That way, if the Europeans wanted to, they could jam the U.S. system and control use to their system! It could even be field tested somewhere over Siberia.
Just a thought.
The best diplomat I know is a fully activated phaser bank.
-- Scotty.
Who is going to pay that subscription fee while there is a free one in the sky? It's like web sites. Who is going to pay for content when there is more than you can read in a lifetime free?
I have a feeling that if the Europeans build a fee based GPS, nobody will come. What a waste of Euro taxpayer dollars.
Actually, the U.S. Department of Defense has clearly outlined scenarios in which GPS would be locally shut down and/or jammed; Space.com had an interesting story about it earlier this month.
Another reason is the available of ultrawideband technology (UWB). It's really interesting, relatively inexpensive, and can provide tremendously accurate (1 centimeter) positioning.
No, I don't own stock in it or anything like that (although, as a U.S. citizen, I should).
The Europeans have found us out! The GPS is really a source of mind control rays that warp sensibilities. Why do you think Jerry Lewis is so popular in France?
To retaliate they are going to build their own, and make us think the European rock and roll is good, and like warm beer, too!
See http://zapatopi.net/afdb.html for the defence against this dastardly plot!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
In other news, France surrenders to barrage of location tracking satellites.
The article mentioned that the U.S. Military was now capable of Jamming GPS signals so that is the reason they turned off Selective Availability. So why wouldn't it be possible for the enemy to make jammers to stop us from using our own system? (or any GPS system for that matter). From what I've heard GPS signals that finally make it to the receiver are very weak and therefore a stronger signal coming from somewhere on the ground would possibly interfere. Wouldn't this be a Denial of Service GPS style? Does the military signal have some sort of antijam feature? Lets hope so.
You can read a paper here about the date bug.
Looking for any old 8-bit Heathkit/Zenith software/hardware - http://heathkit.garlanger.com
The military GPS system had an encoded 'noise' generator in it sposition. For civilian use, it was designed to give accuracy within 100m, 95%of the time, and 200m 99% of the time. They also reserved the right to degrade civilian accuracy further (like, within several hundred meters only 50% of the time, or worse) at any time, to keep enemies from using it to lob missiles through windows. The base standard is perfectly adequate for most high-seas navigation, but sucks in tight channels or for any precision operations, like airplane taxiing or highway navigation.
Military GPS recievers had decoders built in, and were accurate to within a couple meters. This diffrence in accuracy was called 'selective availability.' BTW, during the gulf war, the military had a shortage of GPS recievers so they turned selecive availability off and used civilian recievers. Didnt seem to affect security all that much.
To get around the problem, ths US Coast Guard deployed a system called Differential GPS, or DGPS. Basically, they created fixed-position GPS recievers, which continuously compared the position derived from civilian-degraded GPS with a known position, and then broadcast the correction in real time. DGPS recievers applied the correction to the satellite position, and restored ccuracy to about 10-20 meters. In short, one branch of the military, (the coasties) were spending tens of millions to overcome the inaccuaracy included by another branch of the military.
During the Clinton administratioin, it bacame apparent that civilian uses of GPS were becoming signivicant to the economy, so Clinton ordered selective availability turned off (or turned down) to increase civilian accuracy. However, the military still reserves the right to degrade the civilian signal at any time without warning, if they percieve a national security risk.
So, the interest in a European GPS network is at least in part to remove the control from the US military, and remove the hreat of having the system degraded when they may want to use it.
From the news desk:
All the countries in the world besides America have decided to reinvent the wheel. Frere Jaques, a senior official close to the project commented saying "The wheel is just too round. We thought we would make more like an octagon."
Next on the list for them is to invent refried-refried beans. Stay tuned.
However, AFAIK the accuracy can't really be improved by improving the satellites - it's already at the point where the devices need to take into account relativistic effects to get their ~10m accuracy - and atmospherics probably impose this limit. So what could a new version achieve (apart from fighting the evil US plan for world domination)?
The only other thing I could think of was a system which automatically turns the signal off for any satellite over the US (Hah! That'll teach those pesky Americans not to mess with us by spending billions on a system then giving it away
./s here seem to forget the biggest benefit of a Euro-GPS -- redundacy.
You can't even fathom how dependant we are on GPS already. It's amazing.
* Ships use it as a replacement for LORAN (with LORAN being the redundancy).
*The whole telco industry uses it . Rather then sending a sync signal for long-distance serial lines (aka some T-1s, etc) they use GPS (with wire-sync being the redundancy).
* A good hunk of the computer industry uses it. GPS receivers are used for many NTP servers.
* The FAA is looking into using it (as a replacement for thier ground-based radar set up to allow pilots to autonomously plot thier poin-to-point flight plans).
* The military uses it in many ways including the self-guided smart bombs, etc.
We all know that a lot of people and companies do not build in redundancy until the sh*t hits the fan andsomthing goes down. If we loose a few GPS satellites the results for those that were not careful would be catastrophic. Having a second system in place, even at a subscription cost, is VERY valuable.
BTW I highly doubt the miltary would ever shut down civilian access to GPS in anything less then a world war. The US economy is WAY too dependant on it.
China is also attempting to launch their own GPS network, and infact, they are actually farther along then the EU, having launched their first sat.
e s/ flash2000-082.shtml
http://www.spaceandtech.com/digest/flash-articl
There has also been talk of China financing the the Glonass system (Russia's GPS) for their own use.
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/gps-00h.html
[sarcasm]Just what we need!
GPS.Eu Version 0.1
GPS# whereami
Recieving response from GPS.Eu Sat #24
Response: "We'd tell you, but you have your own version of GPS, you American bloke!"
Seriously, whats wrong with the existing GPS system?
The problem with the 'just trust us' approach is that it is difficult to place great trust in a democratic country that no longer bothers to count the votes and is planing to do away with trials, replacing them by tribunals. Meanwhile the Bush admin. has declared that it will unilaterally withdraw from any agreements it finds to be inconvenient - including biggies like the ABM treaty.
The cost is not a major issue, $1Bn is not a huge amount in the EU budget, however it is not a negligible issue. The Brits would certainly not get bothered enough about the risks of a US monopoly, the French on the other hand can be relied upon to get into a galic stew over the issue.
The concern for the EU would be that a future US president might use the GPS selective availability system as a bargaining chip in future trade negotiations. The US has from time to time gone through protectionist cycles and a President Buchannan might well have tried to get his way through various types of blackmail. Or imagine Senator Jessie Helms putting a ridder on an appropriations bill ordering the Admin. to turn off GPS service to any country that does not toe the line on whatever idea the supporter of segregation happened to have that week.
Given the vagaries of the US political process it is not surprising that the dependence on the GPS system is being raised as an issue. It is very unlikely that the EU will go ahead and build a rival system, however it is very likely that the US will respond to the proposals with a set of diplomatic assurances over the use made of selective availabilty. And just as GWB has discovered that the ABM treaty matters after all a future president Buchanan would find that diplomatic assurances are kind of harder to renege on than US unilateralists tend to believe.
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
yes, the US military can selectively jam GPS signals, or control the precision of the signals in certain geographic locations.. I actually worked on a project with the NAWC about 6 years ago to do this.. The jammers were small enough that they could fit in something about the size of a suitcase, and be dropped from a plane into enemy territory..
4 7_ STO65096,00.html
In fact, this article suggests that they're doing it now in Afghanistan:
http://www.computerworld.com/storyba/0,4125,NAV
The US admitted to having the Blackbird in the mid 80s...because they have something better. We see pictures of the new remote controlled spy planes on CNN today...because the US has something better.
The US would only turn off selective availability after it had developed a system which was more accurate than the original system.
Selective Availability was a problem at first because the computing power necessary to account for variable error was unattainable when the system was first rolled out. Crunching the numbers was expensive....especially in a portable situation. Solutions existed but cost was prohibitive.
With GPS receivers costing ~$100 (ie eTrex) what's the point of the EU developing their own satellite system unless it's compatible with all of the existing receivers that are readily available on the market today? And if it is compatible, then can't it really only be as good as the GPS system that's in place today (sans SA.)
If more satellites for a GPS-like system, wouldn't it be possible to get a more accurate fix on your location? According to this page, three satellites are required to get a fix on your location (four to perform time correction). However, a number of problems exist: (taken from above site)
1. The receiver clock is not exactly synchronized with the satellite clock so the time of flight will be imprecise.
2.The satellite and receiver are in different velocity reference frames and gravitational regimes so there are relativistic differences (both special and general)
3. The speed of light is 300,000 km/s in a vaccum. However, while travelling through the Earth Ionosphere and Troposphere, the radio waves travel at slightly slower speeds
4. Radio signals traveling through the atmosphere travel differents paths depending on the location of the receiver.
Although the first problem is correctable using a fourth satellite, the remaining three problems persist. However, if you receive signals from several satellites (not just your minimum 4), if you average your reported locations, you should be able to get a more accurate fix on your location.
Something like this was mooted a couple of years back. The main annoyance was the extra work in tying the two (somewhat different) methods together, I suspect that the integration isn't as neat as it could have been. I can't help thinking that it would be more productive to have an open standard for positioning information (including things like pseudo satellites) rather than gluing together different stuff.
:o)
And spheroids are calculable. Anyone doing surveying will be reading into a PDA or something anyway so they can transform coords into any space they want.
Xix.
"Everything is adjustable, provided you have the right tools"
I recall that Canada and the US had a dispute recently concerning the launch of a Canadian build satellite. It had as good or better (within 3 metres) resolution that anything the US military had in operation. The United States refused to launch it, citing a possible security risk.
I think the US went so far as to threaten cancellation of military contracts that had been rewarded to Canadian firms.
Does Canada dare defy NASA or NAS or USAF or GWB again?
Also, does anyone know if said satellite was actually launched? Last I heard Canada was asking the ESA and even Japan to launch it.
Is that a real poncho? I mean, is that a Mexican poncho or is that a Sears poncho?
(Sound of a whirring fishing pole)
Got one! Its a biggun! I think French!
I am an Engineering student at the University of Calgary, in Canada. As a writer for the student newspaper, I had the chance to write a story about a project called the AUTO21 project.
This is a multi-million dollar venture by the Canadian government that involves researchers in all fields, including sciences and humanities. Essentially what they are trying to achieve is a car that drives itself.
I interviewed the head of the U of C's Geomatics department, Dr. Gerard Lachapelle. He mentioned the European "rival" to GPS (he called it "Galileo"), but he did not seem to think of it as a rivalry at all. Quite on the contrary, he and his department plan on using both technologies extensively in their coming work on the project.
All the same, he seemed extremely excited about the prospect of a second system.
~windside
...Whether my Maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter.
Churchill
Is this a photo satellite? 3 meter resolution for something like that is nothing - I seem to remember reading that the lastest US satellites could resolve on a pack of cigarettes (giving it a few centimeter) resolution. Hell, over on terraserver, there's like ten meter resolution, and that data's years and years old.
--- On the other hand, you have five fingers.
The Beidou navigation satellites sit in an orbit over China. .
If you did not get it.. mm.. enroll in a basic physics/astronomy class.. journalists sure skipped'em .. ;-))
<^>_<(ô ô)>_<^>
Now every country need a sattelite over its own country..you see? ;-) (that was a joke, but the quote real.. dumb journalists.. ;)
<^>_<(ô ô)>_<^>
It seems to me that not too long ago Slashdot ran an article about GM's Onstar system incorporating advertising into their service. Although this is pure speculation, how long will it be before we see satellite services marketed similar to television, with a reasonable choice of providers and a wide variety of services available (phone, television, GPS, internet) and relying as heavily on advertising as some of the above? My bet is this is where we're going. Any takers?
What's in a Sig?
Your idea is not bad at all, but much depends on the accuracy of the accelerometers used. Planes will only be able to use it if the FAA approves such GSP receivers...
Another problem that could be addressed by this new program is the fact that there aren't enough (!) GPS satellites up there. I don't know the exact figures but I'll explain the principle: to know your position you'll have to receive at least 4 satellites. IFR (instrument flight rules) operations require at least 5, in case one should fail. IFR comes in different classes: the lower you get on minimums (visibility and ceiling), the more redundancy you need. That is, for certain IFR classes you would need up to 7 or 8 visible satellites. But there aren't always that many satellites above the horizon. So the conclusion is we could use some more GPS satellites up there.
Unfortunately the article doesn't mention the number of satellites ESA is going to launch...
Really, the Bush Administration has no plans to just pick up and move other countries by tweaking their GPS coordinates on occasion. Hey, French Elections this week - let's shove them a couple feet to the right - that'll show'em Austrian right-wingers causing bad press? No problem, now the same guys are a bit farther left. Belgian EU Bureaucrats acting up? Relocate them to the English Channel, or reset their clocks back a few years before they were elected, and they'll go back home. Piece of cake.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
First of all: the first experimental telecom satellite for trying out some technologies is in the sky: Artemis, the same satelite that was earlier on /. about telecommunications with lasers and ion propulsion. To learn more read this: http://www.esa.int/export/esaSA/ESA8QIPZ9NC_teleco m_0.html
...
/. being an open source community I would have expected that point would stick ....
Second: GPS is not at all that good at high lattitudes. The scandinavian countries (part of the EU and ESA) complain about this. For the EU (and Russia), having big populations there, this is crucial. Having a wider coverage should make Galileo competetive.
Third: the new systhem must replace GPS AND be a better systhem. Far superior recieving quality
Fourth: the US was asked first to bring the GPS in an international body, but refused.
Yes, James Bond may be the greatest English export IMHO, but I don't really think that the plot from Tomorrow Never Dies is particuarly realistic (false GPS signals fed to targetted areas) It's quite simply a waste of money. The US government could pull the plug at any time, encode the transmissions or fake the results (possibly), but that is so unlikely. Euro-US relations are far too strong to warrant such expense.
...which standart they use on the planet you're traveling to.
but you don't have to worry here.
--
making up good sigs is a hard thing to do.
So this means that the US is gonna have to spend $1B themselves to develop anti-GPS-like-sattelite-sattelites to make these sattelites 'accidently' disappear when they believe there to be a 'National Security Risk'
**AA: a bunch of mindless jerks who'll be the first against the wall when the revolution comes
The problem wasn't that the votes were not counted. The problem was that they were counted over, and over, and over again. Even if the supreme court had allowed a several county recount bush still would have won. If the democrats had asked for an entire state recount and got it (which seemed like a bad idea at the time) Gore would have won. However, when it's so close, it's more important that somebody win sooner rather the right person 6 months after the election.
is planing to do away with trials, replacing them by tribunals.
Heh, but not for U.S. citizens. Only for alleged terrorists in a certain situation. Since 90% of americans probably think shooting them on sight is our the idea, a trial at all is pretty good.
Meanwhile the Bush admin. has declared that it will unilaterally withdraw from any agreements it finds to be inconvenient
First of all, the bush administration seems less likely to do this now that international support is more necessary for the war in afghanistan. Secondly, no countries ever follow treaties if it doesn't suit them. If any other country had the money lying around to develop an ABM system you bet your asteroids they would (except maybe switzerland).
I actually think that another system is a good idea, because american GPS systems are such a great military target, and redundancy is good. I just dislike half-informed country bashing.
Jack Valenti and the MPAA are to technology as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone
During the war in Kosovo, the US turned off GPS over much of Europe, for tactical military reasons. Naturally, this is bothersome to legitimate Europeans who have come to rely on GPS. So it makes sense that they would want to build their own system.
Structured data. Structured searching. The Enzyme Project
If this is such a daft waste of money, as many posters have suggested, why don't the US government just let the EU waste their cash?
The fact they are concerned suggests it makes good strategic sense for the EU to do it.
Right now the US could destroy the European economies overnight (no flights, no shipping, damaged land freight and no military).
This has nothing to do with intentions, I cannot see the USA and Europe falling out an time soon, but capabilities. Any government that made itself permanently vulnerable in that way would be failing in its primary task of protecting its citizens.
"Galileo arose from European concerns about falling behind the United States technologically."
OK class, who can tell me when GPS was first deployed? And when will Galileo be deployed at its earliest?
Our next topic of discussion is the importantce of picking proper verb tense...
But it works only in North America (relevant to the article), and it requires a view of the WAAP satellite - on GS orbit - not always good visibility, especially in towns, there DGPS is needed for corrections..
<^>_<(ô ô)>_<^>
Here is a link WAAS
Two sigma: 3 meters..<^>_<(ô ô)>_<^>
That still leaves the Russian system, but I am not sure it is going to be maintained - probably they may use their expertise to kick start the European system.
<^>_<(ô ô)>_<^>
One guy got his Ph.D. on a proposal on using galactic pulsar as navigational aids. That's a big ass network of transmitters.
<^>_<(ô ô)>_<^>
Americans very much consider this a war. It is not unusual to consider assassination of foreign officials during times of war. Saddam tried on bush. We've had prohibitions on it that the CIA occasionally violates. There's been consideration of lifting the prohibition.
We're not talking about foreign officials here - we're talking about tourists, exchange students, and immigrant workers! Do you really think that granting them a "trial" by secret tribunal is generous?! (Not that I can really blame you, as Britain is also busily engaged in stripping alleged "terrorists" of their human rights...)
Because many countries that sponsor terrorists may have cbrn capabilities and will probably have missiles that reach the U.S. in 10 or 20 years. Normal deterrence (MAD) does not work for many of these nations, because Saddam Hussein, for example, does not seem to care if we kill all of his citizens. It would save him a lot of work. Upholding treaties kind of pales in comparison to the thought of that.
I hold it proven: you're mad. September 11 has already demonstrated that missiles are not the only way to attack a country. ABM is a flawed idea - it's like going into battle with bullet-proof socks and a bare chest. And this idea that MAD "doesn't work" for so-called "terrorist-sponsoring states" - where on earth is that coming from? Can you provide any evidence at all? Saddam Hussein is a dictator, yes, but I haven't noticed much froth around his mouth.
Look here, mathematician.. You can determine the position of the sattelite down to 1m. That means if you have two sattelites 15,000 km away from each other (opposite on orbit) you will completly lose any accuracy when (distance between satellites)/(distance to you) ~ (1m / 15000m), i.e. 225,000,000 km - so being on the mars you will be able to determine that..you are on the Mars.. Not really interstellar.... ;-) in the real world, errors have to be taken into account - but do not worry - look at my post below for a truly global solution.. ;)
<^>_<(ô ô)>_<^>
.. how come format of its data feed is almost identical to GPS, huh ?
I worked for Moscow office of Ashtech (www.ashtech.com) at the time when their Engineering dept. was working on dual-mode receiver. That thinggy was supposed to understand both GPS and GLONASS signals and use both datafeeds for computing the position. And software guys were saying that integrating GLONASS data into existing GPS algorithms is a snap exactly because it is not only very similar, but also have almost the same format and sequencing.
3.243F6A8885A308D313
You don't have to "hear" anything. You can check it out for yourself.
Liam Healy
The US military GPS system transmits at very low power levels. I guess it was originally designed so a soldier with a backpack and a long whip antenna could determine his location in an open field. ??
Now that we are trying to cram receivers into cell phones (that already have enough other RF interference to compete with), it would be nice to see a GPS system with a little bit of OOMPH behind the signal. Maybe then it could be used in more indoor or urban canyon environments.
This is the argument of "dumb satellite, smart reciever" vs "smart satellite, dumb receiver".
Cell phone companies learned early on that it's better to build expensive/powerful base stations and CHEAP phones, since you produce many millions of phones. On the other hand, GPS receivers require a great deal of computing power and very high gain receivers. So the millions of receivers are expensive (but I wouldn't exactly call the satellites "cheap").
Just an observation on the difference between commercial projects and military ones.
// Alan Porter
Also, if you have GPS on GS orbit, they will form an almost straight line - BAD for triangulation, not to mention visibility.
In short, no, you can not have a GPS system "over China". Journalist was sloppy, and you, likely, a bit sloppy too.. ;-))
<^>_<(ô ô)>_<^>
As for the Coasties having to develop a workaround, it would not surprise me to hear that that work-around was funded in part by the same services, who wanted to know what a work-around would look like and cost. And it would not be the last time that one branch kept information from another because they feared a security leak. And a bunch of whiney civilians living in a make-believe world complaining about it should get shot at a couple of times and see how they feel about security and keeping a secret.
It's chauvenism, actually.
~windside~
...Whether my Maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter.
Churchill
Et si vous êtes suprèmes comme vous la dites, pourquoi n'osez vous pas discuter vos affaires en votre lange maternelle?
...Whether my Maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter.
Churchill
Anybody who saw pictures of American B-52's using GPS-guided bombs to dramatically reduce collateral damage (compare with WWII) should understand why we did not want anyone else to be able to use GPS against us.
If someone does bomb us, we want as much collateral damage as possible?
And a bunch of whiney civilians living in a make-believe world complaining about it should get shot at a couple of times and see how they feel about security and keeping a secret.
Ah, yes, now I understand...
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
Are saying that Gore *did* win but you have no problem with GWB being president? Are you mad?
However, when it's so close, it's more important that somebody win sooner rather the right person 6 months after the election.
No, you are very very wrong. A thorough transparent COMPLETE recounting of EVERY ballot is the sole acceptable solution. To be hurried - for what reason i dont know, the president isnt inaugurated for months after the vote - makes no sense. Why not take your time and be thorough, NOT doing so could only end up casting questions onto the legitimacy of your democracy, your president, your entire system? Very big stakes, for what reason were these things chanced? (aside: Bush's brother and his cronies were in charge of the re-count, this casts EVEN MORE doubt on the legitimacy of the event... very sad day for "american democracy")"
First we're not a democracy, we're a Republic that elvolved from a confederation of sovereign states. The US is one f'ed up mutt and it shows.
The comment about being in a hurry shows a lack of in depth understanding of the issues, there were timetables imposed by law and the constitution, and to throw those out the window based on our concepts of fair play would be pure folley. Here's how I understand it, but I could be wrong too. Under federal law each state decides by constitution/law how it will select the number of electors appointed to it. In Florida, and most/all other states, each party/candidate on the ballot selects a bunch of electors. When you "vote for the president" you're actually just telling the state of Florida which electors you'd like to see sending their votes to D.C. to be counted (and these electors may not even be legally bound to vote for a certain candidate). According to the constitution electors for all states MUST cast their ballots on a date set by congress (not sure what it's currently set to). However under Florida law if there is an election controversy and no elector has been chosen by a certain date then the state congress (might be Senate only) gets to chose the electors. iirc when Gore threw in the towel we were less than a week from that day. If the republican controlled congress of Florida would have excercised this power we can presume Bush's electors would have been picked.
Quite frankly as I see it our laws worked as written, simply not as we'd have like them to work. Kinda like writing code eh? Sure it wasn't fair, but imho our courts put to much emphasis on being fair over being just. In the end, Bush won and that was the most likely result as soon as the whole problem erupted.
Damnit I AM acting my age. I'm 15 in hex!