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E.U. Agrees To Launch Galileo Satellite Location System
waimate writes "The European Union today decided to go ahead with Galileo, the constellation of 30 satellites which will compete with the U.S. GPS system.
The U.S. abolished selective availability three years ago partly to make GPS more useful for all mankind, but also to dissuade other countries from developing their own navigational satellite system, and thus be dependant on the U.S. for both peaceful and military purposes. Since the demise of the Russian GLONASS system, GPS is the only game in town. Evidently recent events make Europe feel less comfortable about such things, and so they're building their own. Good thing for commercialization of space, or bad thing for world peace?"
How could it possibly be bad for world peace that not only one (violent) country can direct their bombs accurately??
They need to follow it up with extensive space-based surveillance and ABM/ASAT capabilities.
To say nothing of all the work they have to do in conventional forces.
America the beautful has given way to America the barbaric. If there is to be a future that sees a world at peace, the EU may very be our last, best hope.
Is this truly the only Earth I can live on?
1) existing market for GPS products.
2) potential for military abuse.
There exists billions of dollars in infrastructure to use the Navstar GPS system including software, hardware, weapons, and base stations. A new system may not gain commercial traction, and if it does, it just splinters the existing market, limiting potential improvements.
As for military applications, what happens diplomatically when the frenchies or the belgians or some other group of fruity bastards mandate that their system be left on while the US is fighting the next war for them? What does it mean if they turn it off? Even so, the french are notorious for buying and selling state secrets, so when equipment that can read the encrypted systm starts ending up in north korea, everybody has a big problem on their hands.
People who think they know everything really piss off those of us that actually do.
Thanks. You just gave me a new standard for "the stupidest comment on /.".
Currently, the US shuts down GPS (basically) to countries it is at war with. If Europe built an always-on, indescriminate GPS system, and the US went to war with some country that used Euro-GPS guided missiles, the US would consider this giving aid to their enemy. Europe would either have to shut it down (making it do just what the US-GPS does) or the US would shoot it out of the sky. So, basically, the main gripe with GPS (US controll) is not alleviated at all. Totally pointless.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
No, it will not be more accurate than GPS. By the time these satellites get up (if ever they do), GPS will have added another frequency (L5) for civilian navigation purposes. Galileo might be slightly more accurate than what GPS provides to the military (via Y-code) right now. Big whoop.
Of course, and I'll display a bit of peevishness right now from reading the sentiments of Yuropeens in other comments, the whole damn Galileo system basically runs in the ruts created by TWENTY years of GPS (even more by the time Galileo is launched), to the extent that one of Galileo's frequencies overlays the primary frequency of GPS (L1 - 1575MHz). It is this overlay and concerns about regulations that are the U.S.'s primary concerns with the system. To whit, this blurb. There's a slighty more reactionary piece at CNN. Note however, that the military is notoriously conservative, and if there is even the possibility of interference, they can get all uppity.
This is a bit more information about the frequency allocations and gives a bit of info about the accuracy of both systems. Certainly a dual-mode system using both Galileo and GPS should be more accurate than a single system, but if you're in the continental U.S. you can probably get differential GPS anyway, and the next GPS system is supposed to be up in the 2012 timeframe if we're lucky.
So yeah, go to all the expense you want to create a dual system or whatever brings a tear of Continental Pride to your eye, but in my mind it's billions of dollars resulting in some nice lessons but without providing any additional capability. For fuck's sake, you should be happy that the American taxpayer is footing the damn bill to provide you with such accurate information now and for the forseeable future. But please, continue bitching about how evil and reckless America is, I almost can't get to sleep anymore without that constant low-level whining.
"End result of the US decision to invade ? Thousands of Iraqi civilians dead (not to count tens of thousands of Iraqi army personnel), no WMDs found and the chances of terrorist attacks have increased as people see the US as invading and subjugating another muslim country."
Yes but we control the oil wells so our primary objective has been met. Most americans are more then glad to kill tens of thousands of arabs if the price of gas goes down 25 cents.
War is necrophilia.
What's this "us" about? "We" (individual US citizens with individual opinions) don't make the decision to invoke the force of government, military or otherwise. Only government makes that decision. "We" didn't attack Iraq, and "we" certainly didn't kill any innocent Iraqis. It was the US government that attacked Iraq, and it was the US government that killed innocent Iraqis.
Please, don't fall into the trap of equating the US government's agenda with the individual citizens.
Without US financial support, Britain would have been bankrupt after the first year.
And it's still besides the point -- why does everyone point fingers at the US for being late, if we had no effect? Would you rather we had come in sooner, or not at all?
Sure am tired of saving Europe's cowardly ass.
Infuriate left and right