GPS vs. Galileo; Where Are They Headed?

ben_ writes "This keynote speech from the recent European Navigation Conference talks about the history between the US military's GPS and the proposed EU Galileo system, as well as where they're both going. Interested in how you know where you are and what's going to happen to those satellites?"

Comments

Re:makes me wonder

[AgentAce]

They're waiting for the year of the cock

Re:Essential to Ending US Dominance

[letxa2000]

The second world war is something for which many Europeans are still grateful, but that doesn't mean that they'll accept vassal status to a patently power-mad and, I'm sorry to say, arrogant America. 'Cleaning up the mess' isn't something the states has managed in a long time, so stop trying to trade on the non-existent reputation of your country.

Non-existent reputation? Let's see here...

For better or for worse, the U.S. has solved more serious world conflicts than Europe has. Maybe if we hadn't been so succesful at fixing your (Europe's) problems in the first half of the 20th century we wouldn't think we could do it now in Iraq. Maybe if we hadn't won the Cold War with the USSR we would be more humble. But history has shown that our strategy, overall, has worked and we can fix world conflicts (*). Europeans might not like us right now or may disagree with our currenct foreign policy, and many of them may say that our "reputation"="their opinion of our foreign policy." But, in reality, we have the reputation for having solved a number of significant problems in the world in the 20th century, we rebuilt Europe, were triumphant in the face of the Soviet threat, and have generally been a stabilizing force.

Meanwhile, history has shown that Europe can get together and build a contintental bueracracy and make pretty speeches while the U.S. continues to protect its military security and even pays for that security. Their reputation is one of requiring assistance in the face of dictators, total destruction of the continent, requiring our aid to rebuild, and thereafter pretty much criticizing us for not being as peaceful as they would like despite the fact that their "peacefulness" and appeasement in the past has only encouraged aggression that the U.S. later had to fix. It's like Europe hasn't learned from its own history.

I don't hate Europe or Europeans, but I think some of their criticism of the U.S. and even some of our current policies is rather hypocritical and ironic.

(*) That does not mean we are immune from making mistakes or creating conflicts, too.