India Joins Galileo Consortium

ghoul writes "Yahoo! is reporting that both India and China have joined the Galileo Consortium as part of an effort at building a Multipolar world. Of note is the fact while China is giving money (200 Million Euros) India is giving 350 million Euros(almost half a billion dollars) in parts and services as Indian satellite makers are considered world class. Makes you think with all the outsourcing and stuff maybe America's century is coming to an end and this century will belong to India or China. After all one of them is 1/6th of the world and the other 1/5th."

Comments

Wrong "Galileo" link.

[dbirchall]

Galileo.com is, despite the image on its homepage that looks for all the world like a GPS mesh, a Central Reservation System in the travel industry. (It competes with best-known SABRE and also with WorldSpan and possibly others - it's been a little while since I worked for a division of the folks who own Galileo, so my memory's fading.)

The European satellite navigation project Galileo is at http://europa.eu.int/comm/dgs/energy_transport/gal ileo/index_en.htm.

That's what India and China are getting involved with. Airlines, not nations, get involved with Galileo.com.

Article has some misleading numbers

[notyou2]

At present, the only global satellite system available to civilians is GPS, but it is accurate only to 100 metres (325 feet) for civilians, or 22 metres (71 feet) for the military, and is under the control of the Pentagon.

What the hell are they talking about? With off-the-shelf equipment and a clear sky, you can easily get under 10-foot accuracy (I do on a very regular basis). With averaging and/or fancy equipment you can easily exceed that, too.

If they're talking about accuracy while the military has implemented that signal degredation stuff, it's misleading not to mention that fact. But either way, the military would still be able to do a hell of a lot better than 71-foot accuracy... that's ridiculous.

Re:Article has some misleading numbers

[tigerc]

Indeed, President Clinton cancelled selective availability, as it was called, in May of 2000. This order effectively stopped the intentional degredation of satellite signals (which might aid the enemy). Apparently, the benefits outweighed the potential costs.

http://www.navcen.uscg.gov/gps/selective_availab ility.htm

Re:India & China

[fault0]

> India has an illiteracy rate about 70%.

Erm, that hasn't been true since around 1970.

Indian Literacy Rates:
1951 - 18.33%
1961 - 28.31%
1971 - 34.45%
1981 - 43.56%
1991 - 52.21%
2001 - 65.38%

Assuming another 13% Jump in literacy, India will be at western standards in less than twenty years. It might even be faster than that, because between 1991 and 2001, there was greater change in India as a whole in terms of economic reforms than the whole fifty years since Indian independence before that. In any case, there is already more literate people in India than in the US.

more articles

[jubalj]

okay the story doesnt really have that much information, if you want to find out more, try:

http://www.spacetoday.net/Summary/2003
http://w ww.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=%2F news%2F2003%2F10%2F31%2Fwspace31.xml
http://www.s pacedaily.com/2003/031030141843.79tqo7 1o.html
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articl eshow/293 953.cms
http://www.dw-world.de/english/0,3367,478 9-184676_ W_1017248,00.html
http://english.peopledaily.com. cn/200310/28/eng200 31028_126977.shtml

that should quench your thirst!

what the

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, how many pro Europe, anti-American hints could be found in that post alone?

* Throwing out the world "Multipolar". It's also capitalized for extra emphasis.
* Referencing the money values in euros, even though the world standard is dollars. (Even the Yahoo article did it right. But the article writer decided to switch them around).
* Of course, the final sentence that says "perhaps America's day is past" stuff

Of course, when I saw this biased piece of crap article, I immediately knew it was michael accepted it. Because as we all know, michael doesn't care about honest journalism, he already admits he's heavily biased

Don't tell that to these guys

[rrace]

http://www.newamericancentury.org/

Re:India & China

[fault0]

> You are extrapolating in a linear fashion based on the highest growth rate recorded this century.

No, as I started, there was a large amount of economic and social reforms put in place after 1991 (when the Rao government took power, and instituted massive reforms in not only education, but the economy-- moving from post-Gandhist "lets leave most Indians as farmers", to a different post Cold War reality. Much like China did in 1978, but in a perhaps more accelerated manner)

> Western Europe and the US have literacy rates circa 95%

Of course, that's why I said "western standards". It's unlikely India will ever reach 99% literacy.

Re:It's not how much you spend...

[rwa2]

Well, you're sort of nitpicking, as far as where the bulk of our money goes.

Take a look at these three US Budget plots http://hairball.bumba

Four items far outweigh all of the others combined: SSA, Healthcare, Treasury (interest on national debt), and Defense. Everything else (including those items you mentioned) add up to diddly. SSA and Healthcare also show no signs of slowing down, and the baby boomers are just starting to retire.

I'm kind of surprised the Howard Dean campaign has't harped more on this data (which is from the White House budget & management administration itself). If the #1 & #2 things we spend on are SSA and Healthcare (they're listed separately from the rest of the our taxes on our W2's for chrissake), it seems like a doctor would be the kind a person we need to figure out how to trim them surgically without harming the programs as a whole. Then once those things are under control, we could use a good economist and maybe a general to strategically trim the other two big budget items.

To your credit, the Department of Agriculture is the biggest of the "small fish" budget items. :)