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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?"
I guess we Americans can't blame anyone for not trusting us after the whole Iraq thing. Somebody's got to police the police!
This has been in the works for many years. It has to do with American power in general, and not any specific recent actions.
or bad thing for world peace?
Er, I you mean good thing for world peace.
Unless you want to imply that the USmilitary is going to attack europe to stop them from lauching its satelittes...
You can't take the sky from me...
A receiver compatible with both systems could provide increased accuracy over either alone. Even though current GPS is accurate enough for my practical demands, I want more for nerd reasons. I remember speculation on using both GLONASS and GPS signals several years ago with the idea of improving both reliability and accuracy.
I'm sure I'll get blasted for this, but the US really showed it's true colours in this last war. They rode roughshod over every international organisation when the consensus didn't go their way and ultimately staged an invasion rather than liberation. I think under these circumstances the world needs another option.
Galileo has been in the planning for quite a while, and will as far as I can tell be compatible and possibly linked with the US GPS system.
The Galileo homepage, in english.
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The combined human population is enough to feed every living tiger for app. 28000 years.
Not the army.
Galileo is --in theory-- much more accurate than GPS. You probably don't want your airliner to risk missing the runway by a couple of meters in thick fog. Galileo will give QoS guarantees and greater precision, which will make it a viable solution for critical systems such as air-traffic control. But I have no clue what the current plans are to enforce the policy that it should be a civilian-only system.
During Galileo's day, longitude was hard to determine. Ships at sea had no sufficiently good clocks to determine position. Galileo proposed a system using the moons of Jupiter, but it never worked well enough. John Harrison ultimately solved the problem, but I guess "Harrison" does not sound as good as "Galileo." Nova had a good program on the longitude problem. There was also a bestselling book about Harrison and his feat, but I have not read it.
Good thing for commercialization of space, or bad thing for world peace? And how is the EU having thier own GPS system a threat to world peace? Maybe if your a paranoid mountain hermit, and if the world to you is the USA. I for one trust the EU as peacekeepers more than just about any powerful organization out there.
True genius is grasping a situation like a peice of fruit, and peircing it just right so that it drains dry.
The main problem with accuracy is the timing circuitry in the receiver. Most receivers now are accurate to a few nanoseconds, which happens to be the time it takes light (or GPS signals) about 1 foot, so 10-20 ft accuracy is typical (at least in my experience). Other than timing issues, atmospheric heating would cause inaccuracy.
The protocol of the satellites is hardly improvable, except maybe increasing the frequency of transmissions to more than 1 per second.
Catapultam habeo. Nisi omnem pecuniam tuam mihi dabis, ad tuum caput saxum immane mittam.
I don't see that it does anything other than keep Europes high tech industry working and sucking Europes taxpayers dry.
Of course, when the US goes and dumps huge amounts into the military-industrial complex, doing the same bloody thing, that's "encouraging growth" and "creating jobs", both of which are generally considered good.
but what do i know, i'm just a model.
>Unnecessarily duplicating a very expensive piece of infrastructure that the world needs only one instance of.
I think its common knowledge that the US uses all its muscle when it wants something, and we're not just talking military here, but trade. Perhaps the EU believes this will be a boon for them during negotiations with American corporations when discussing stickly matters. No one wants to hear, "So how many GPS devices are you using in Europe right now?" from a high-level American office holder.
On top if it, and probably the main reason for this is control. The EU is going to connect all their expensive toys to GPS and have no control over it. What if its a bad "GPS day" in that part of the world? The Americans have priveledged information on how well GPS is working.
Also, this will create a Galileo market which will help offset the cost. Sure, the Europeans could be buying GPS toys, but after this thing is working guess who will be selling the Galileo toys first and how brand/country loyalty will play out in this multi-billion(?) dollar industry.
The final argument and I think this stands on it own, is autonomy. The EU is not the US-lite. They're their own association and if they want to get off the US teat, the better. Heh, I'd love to see a poll on how Europeans feel about paying for this. I think many wouldn't mind just to be that much less attached to Uncle Sam.
Whatever happens, it could not be a bigger failure than iridium, so lets not cry "financial crisis in the EU" just yet.
So are the EU's space programs "unnecessary" too?
I think we should be glad for redundency and competition right now while most of space program is in dry dock.
The U.S. doesn't really give a damn about the rest of the world, just that part of it which crashes airplanes into our skyscrapers.
If France, sorry, the EU wants its copy of GPS, the U.S. will be ine with it. Until it's used to attack the U.S. At that point, it will cease to exist.
668: Neighbour of the Beast
The /. article claims that the US abolished selective availability three years ago, but that's not the case. They abolished the 'fuzzing' of resolution, so that ordinary joes could get 10-foot accuracy instead of 70, but that's not selective availability.
Selective availability is the capability of 'turning off' GPS in specific geographic regions during times of war or for any other reason. They did it in Afghanistan last year, and they can do it whenever and wherever they want, though it's on an incident by incident basis.
Kevin Fox
Right now we (the US) are bad for world peace. Anything that will help level the world playing field is good for world stability and peace. The EU just needs to get their ducks in a row so they can truly be a world superpower.
"In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act!" -- George Orwell (Eric Arthur Blair)
I appreciate that this question is intended to provoke a debate, but it seems to me to narrow that debate through its phrasing. The implication seems to be that the US are the Guardians of World Peace (TM), and that we pesky Europeans have no business sticking our noses in when it makes the Yanks feel a little less in control.
Given the assumption that any removal of absolute control of some useful technology from the US is potentially "a bad thing for world peace", can anybody possibly point us to the evidence for Iraq's possession of WsMD, given that the Guardians of World Peace (TM) used them as their sole justification for starting a war?
Or could it be that the US should have listened to what the European states (with the sorry exception of my own nation) were trying to tell them about making unjustified assumptions? Might it not be a good thing if more than one kid in the playground has control of the baseball bat?
Using HTML in email is like putting sound effects on your phone calls. Just say <strong>no</strong>.
Of course, no one should _rely_ on GPS, because it can fail and drop out any time. In aviation, for example, where a high degree of fault tolerance and backup systems for everything are needed, GPS plays only a tiny role. But still, millions of people depend on it. Rescue teams use GPS-based navigation systems to get somewhere fast without getting lost, but can only fall back to paper maps if it fails because they don't have the resources to set up a backup system, et cetera et cetera. If you can't imagine a scenario in which someone in Europe needs sattelite navigation, but the US is blocking it, you must be an idiot. You're hitting straw men there. Europe did not take any actions, besides diplomatical ones, to stop US action in Iraq. The majority of people over here are still asking themselves whether it was really justified to liberate the Iraqis against their will (where are the weapons of mass destrucion, by the way?), or if it was just a PR campaign for Dubya, so it was the duty of their official representatives to give their opinion a voice. Galileo has absolutely nothing to do with interfering with US actions, it is not, and was never, intended to get in the way of US forces. The only relation to recent events is that the USA are waging wars and threatening to switch off civilian GPS every few years, so it became apparent that it's a bad idea to make onself depend on their goodwill. You're confusing politics with war mongering there. Besides, Europe doesn't raise the claim to be the _leader_ of the world. I don't think that the US would be delighted if Europe would compete for their role as world police. Besides, they're letting the whole world use GPS anyway. This only changes when they fear the system could be helping some 'rogues' to do evil things, and in this case, they don't care about Europe or anyone a bit, as we saw again recently. Expensive? Why do you care? It's not going to cost the US anything; to the contrary, Europe will probably import some parts from the US. And it's certainly not as expensive as certain US activities which arguably have less merit.
but what do i know, i'm just a model.
Europe roundly condcemned us for not joining WW I fast enough, even tho it was a purely European matter which the Europeans couldn't solve.
... and guess who told them to get out? Duhh ... the US! How about that?
... The US!
... and you'd think, this having been the very hotbed which started WW I, that the Europeans would have been a bit more eager to put a lid on it ... but wait a minute, I seem to remember France popping off their mouth that they wouldn't contribute any troops unless we contributed the lion's share.
... Datyton, Ohio, USA ... how about that!
... and who actually monitored it and enforced it? The US mostly. France and Germany even agreed to a UN resolution just a few months ago telling Saddam he had stalled long enough .. yet when it came time to back it up, they slid into a corner and made silly noises.
... why don't you damn fools get some spine and take care of yourselves?
Then Europe roundly condemned us for not joining in WW II fast enough, even tho that too was a purely European matter which was in fact jump started by the disastrous treaty, drafted by France, which ended WW I.
Not to mention that while Roosevelt was trying to help the Chinese, who Japan had invaded in 1931 and 1937, the Europeans couldn't be bothered with some trifle so far away.
Then the Suez canal fiasco, where Egypt nationalized that wonder of colonial days, Britain and France invaded to take it back
And who told the French that trying to recover Indochina after WW II ended was a mistake? Duhh
Then there's the Balkans again, 1990s, couple of purely European wars there
And where were the Dayton Accords signed? Hmmmm
Now I personally am not a big fan of Bush, or either gulf war. But by gum, the UN signed up in 1991 to cleanup Iraq, put in sanctions, rid it of the big nasty weapons
I personally am sick and tired of saving Eurpoe's ass. WW I, WW II, Suez, Balkans
Infuriate left and right
Oh, sorry - I forgot, in America those that get AIDS deserve it for being God-hating fags. Welcome to the new world order.
How did THAT get modded up?
As a European taxpayer, I applaud the plan to launch Gallileo! Competition is a good thing. This will also create jobs, and in the process of creating it, we will gain more experience in the space industry which will probably be a vital area in the future. Hey, guess what the more space infrastructure we get, the more likely we are to get to Mars.
Also, let's not forget that USEuropean relations are at a low. Being dependent on a system that HAS been switched off in the past is foolish. Just imagine the United States decide to re-implement selective availability - 22 meters accuracy just doesn't cut it. Imagine a ship entering a harbour being 20 meters off to one side. That's enough to ram something.
No, we need Gallileo, and we need not stop here. We need to become independent from the Americans, so in an ideal we can be equal partners and don't get pushed around by whatever weird ideas the US president of the day has.
The Americans who "saved Democracy twice" in Europe in the 20th Century are NOT the Americans running the US today. I will not get into a debate about what's fscked up with America today, but the list is truely long and growing by the month.
Europe cannot be the "center of the universe" (if that's what we want) without a reliable, working, accurate satellite navigation system. Even if you discount military uses, it's just too damn important for commerce today.
Finally, your "always the same gang" smells of jealousy. Yes, France in Germany are the "center of Europe". Together, we have about a third of the population, and I have no idea how much of the industrial output, but let's face it, it's a lot. Yes, France and Germany are in the limelight recently (The UK would, if it chose to participate in the EU instead of in the US). So, what's your point? Are you pissed that Portugal is not the center of attention? The idea behind the EU is that there is Europe of which everybody is a part. If you want your country to play a greater role, push your politicans to do something.
Sorry, but it's people like you why the EU will fail. Put aside your damn jealousy and realize that we are one continent, one people; we are free to live and work anywhere we chose, travel anywhere.
I am not German, I am European. If the EU issued passports and direct citizenship, I'd be the first in line.
Sorry to rant, but you it really pisses me off that we finally seize an opportunity, that the EU finally gets off their collective butts and actually DOES something that will benefit people, and which is a cool project on top of it, and you just cry foul and complain.
Here in a little country called The Netherlands in Western Europe, we house the "international court of Justice". This formally has nothing to do with our country. We just happen provide a place for this institution to "live". This court tries to be fair to dirtbags that order thousands killed in wars.
The United States has "promised" us that they will invade us if "we" ever convict an American of such things.
So, the Europeans should trust their friendly American "friends", who openly refuse to be subjected to the internationally agreed upon "police"? Right.
There are always "differences" between countries. We think that shooting someone for being on your property is outrageous. You think that allowing small quantities of drugs is outrageous.
If at one point in time we (any European country) end up with a difference of opinion that the Americans find important, we'll certainly be refused the right to use the GPS system in a conflict situation.
Also, should anything go wrong with GPS, it's nice to have a backup. I mean how big is the chance that suddenly the Americans end up unable to launch (replacement) satelites for over a year? Only happened twice so far....