Slashdot Mirror
EU Presses Ahead With Galileo GPS System
philkerr writes "The BBC is reporting that European transport ministers have agreed to the 2008 deployment of the European controlled GPS system. Costing 2.1 billion euros and creating 150,000 jobs. Is this just a pork-barrel project, or something Europe really needs to break the reliance on U.S. space technology? This was discussed on Slashdot in June when the U.S. and EU reached an agreement on its deployment."
If not, why should France/ Estonia /Germany/ other EU nation rely on a US system? I can't imagine many heads of armed forces being too happy about relying on a foreign power's system that is out of their control.
There is an issue at the moment that GPS is the de-facto standard for both consumers and business, and there isn't really any competition out there. Should the GPS system fail or be temporarily "upgraded" so that "terrorists" suddenly think they're a mile away from where they really are I don't know of an alternative that The Rest of Us (TM) can use.
I wonder how the US would react if, say, China started blocking GPS from certain places to hold back it's enemies. Tibet for example.
Looks can be deceiving. Or CAN they?
It'll be nice to have a GPS system which won't be known for routine power-play dicking around.
The US is too unstable to hold the keys to a globally relied on tech...
Someone set us up the bomb, so shine we are!
This isn't military, the system is being run by commercial companies. From the military point of view the system can be downgraded in areas of conflict. From the start, the driver for the European system was domestic use.
The main point behind this is the increased accuracy. The US GPS is almost useless in a lot of European cities (winding, narrow streets). In London, I sometimes get 300/400m accuracy on my Garmin (which is not much good for accurate navigation) and, 25% of the time, I get an unuseable signal ("Too weak").
And as for Europe declaring war on the US (with what, a very limited nuclear arsenal compared to the massive US stockpile?), nuclear systems use all sorts of other navigational aids besides GPS. Even 'ordinary' non-cruise missiles use other reasonably accurate methods which have been around long before GPS.
Did he inhale?
If there's one thing you should remember from the comments on this topic, it is that the USA pisses a lot of people off. Instead of telling them that they should not be pissed off, maybe you need to start thinking about why people are so aggravated.
I believe that greatest difference between the US and European systems is that one is a commercial system with guaranteed availability that will allow it to be relied on because it won't be turned off or made less accurate by political decisions.
This makes it suitable for air traffic control and other applications where a system that might be switched off with no notice cannot be used.
Is this just a pork-barrel project, or something Europe really needs to break the reliance on U.S. space technology?
If you missed everything else in the last few years, how about this one reminder: "freedom fries."
All the other good reasons for it aside, that one act by congress made it very clear to all Europe that they're not dealing with adults.
You grow up. Anybody with the technology to build a missile with enough range, payload and accuracy to hit those targets effectively has the ability to make a nuclear weapon - which makes the issue of accurate targetting moot.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
Terrorist instead of using an expensive GPS tracked device, use the old "visual" guidance missile (can't remmember the name), or put themselves in a truck loaded with diesel fuel and chemicals and ram it in the building they want to target. Heck Mc veigh with his truck and bombing did not need GPS. Even better , we are speaking here of people which do not qualm at dying for their cause. So they have de-facto ther best guidance system of the world : themselves. So i do not think terrorist are the key here.
I think the key is that the US military ensure they have an incredible advantage over the opposition, so degradation should be there only in case of military operation. I seriously doubt that a degradation would occurs on US soil just for anti-terrorist purpose.
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Last time I checked, the USA did not own space. But I suppose my disagreement with the policy of the US makes me a hostile, so my opinion counts for nothing.
Well, they would probably grumble a little, then get to work on a way to figure out a way around it, just as they have been doing for decades.
Rubbish. The US military and government would throw a hissy fit, demanding this and that and threatening sanctions. Just like they've done when countires have threatened other US interests and resources in the past.
Looks can be deceiving. Or CAN they?
Are you a troll in a bad disguise?
China has more than enough tech to ensure their missiles make their mark. Don't make the mistake of thinking that the US is the only country in the world that has missiles that don't require monkeys to control them.
``Is this just a pork-barrel project, or something Europe really needs to break the reliance on U.S. space technology?''
IIRC, the USA allowed the EU to build this system, provided that it would be easy for the USA to disrupt it. This means that Galileo is independent in the same sense as political parties in former East Germany; do anything you want, as long as it's what I want.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
Oh, I see... its okay that the US uses its own GPS system for military purposes, and lets the countries it wants to also use it for military purposes, but if Europe decides to allow other countries to use Galileo for military purposes than the US is ofcourse right to shoot it down?
Would the logical conclusion of this be that the EU has the right to shoot down the US GPS system if the EU felt the GPS system was being used by countries against the best interests of the EU?
The best option is multiple systems, that way there is no single entity that can unilaterally, for whatever strategical self-interest, decide to "pull the plug" on another nation's ability to use satelite based location systems.
So yes, China would be a good one. Also Russia, Western Europe, India, Brasil and whoever else can put a satelite up there - the more the merrier.
I wouldn't trust Western Europe with the keys for one single system (and i was born and bred in these parts), just as i wouldn't trust any other single entity.
As for the strategic interest of the US, the best i can say is: though luck - the world is a lot bigger than just Kentuky and americans ain't more or less deserving than anybody else.
PS: Note that the european decision to go ahead (and spend a couple of billions on it) was most certainly influenced by an increased sense in Europe, over the last few years, that the US will throw their muscle around whenever they want, for whatever self-interest reasons, without listening to anybody else. It's like in high school - some people might fear the bully boy, some people might dislike him, some people might wanna be like him, some might even like him, but hardly anybody trusts him.
Dude, the European nuclear arsenal is more than enough to destroy the US several times over. People always seem to estimate how powerful nukes are.
I am trolling
Unfortunately thats entirely the corner we were backed into before the US agreed to allow us (what gives them that right anyway?) to deploy our own system.
Well yes, both sides can shoot the other's down, but that might be considered an act of war.
When the context is international law and war, talking about rights doesn't get you far, because not much is based on them in this area.
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Why should that piss you off? As a citizen of the US, I absolutely DO NOT want a third party to be able to accurately aim a missile at the White House, the Capitol, or a nuclear power plant. These are military assets, not GPL code for the benefit of mankind (the universal GPS was a side benefit, not the purpose).
Isn't this a bit like what RIAA wants when they are seeking to destroy P2P file sharing?
P2P file sharing has legitimate uses (sharing of non-copyrighted material) and illegal ones (sharing of copyrighted content). The RIAA wants P2P (basically) completely forbidden, because of illegal usage.
Galileo has legitimate uses (to aid navigation of civil planes, etc.) and uses that the US doesn't want to see (potentially guiding enemy missiles).
And now the US wants to indiscriminately block the Galileo signal in a large part of the world, simply because of the potential that it might be abused, but at the same time locking out ALL perfectly legitimate usage.
I see a lot of parallels here - and it's kind of interesting that tons of RIAA bashing slashdotters would now take over the same position that the RIAA does in the case of Galileo...
What pisses me off is the US's statement that they'll locally block the European system in places they don't want potential "enemies" (read, China), having accurate location tracking.
I wonder how the US would react if, say, China started blocking GPS from certain places to hold back it's enemies. Tibet for example.
Interestingly enough, most of what I have heard of the US blocking plans sounds like they want to block the Galileo signal around China.
To me, this looks like primarily commercial interests, so that they can sell GPS better in that market. If it was to eliminate the possibility of someone to attack the US guided through Galileos positioning, they would need to block the Galileo signal IN THE US (e.g. in the TARGET area, not in the SOURCE area!).
Thats not to mention the one that decided not to give climb-power on demand and went into the trees (neatly blamed on the pilot but now back under investigation).
And the other ScareBus that decided it was best to take a nose-dive toward a shopping centre against the pilots best wishes. Luckily the computers in that one relented probably with an "Only kidding" message splashed across the EFIS display.
Oh, and don't forget that the Die-by-wire systems are there to protect you from the pilot doing anything stupid like applying too much rudder deflection and shearing the tail-off.......oh, wait, New-york, 14th Nov 2001.
I'll go with your line of seats tho.
Martin-Baker; getting you out of the sh*t since 1942.
Ripping an new rectum in the fabric of spacetime.
Oh shut up you fucking miepes! (or ar you just fideszes) how many billions in structural funds is 'nothing' in your language? and what about the thousands of Hungarians who are now making use of the four freedoms to live and work in London, to name just the city where I live? Jeez...I like Hungary, I'm glad it's joined the EU, I'm proud of the EU, an organisation which has invested billions of euros in raising Ireland, Spain, Portugal, Greece from relative poverty into rich, dynamic economies. And now the same will happen to Hungary. It's already happened to Slovenia (which is now richer than Greece), and Hungary's economy has been *booming* since it became clear that the country would join the EU. As have the economies of all the other new member states.
Just think of that: without the EU, can you imagine the same kind of solidarity from the member states on your own? Can you imagine that the UK or Germany or France would have spontaneously decided to invest billions in the development of deprived regions of Ireland or Hungary? No, they only do it because we have this umbrella organisation which imposes certain moral obligations and rights on all its members. It's unique in the history of the world, it is a benefit for everyone living on this continent, and all you can do is whinge about it.
Jacques Barrot didn't mean 'preventing' floods - his first language isn't English, but I'm sure his English is better than your French. He meant dealing with natural disasters. This doesn't seem like a bad idea to me.
So ebredj fol, almoskam.
To be honest I think that the next moon landing in the vicinity should either:
Take down the American flag as a sign that the moon isn't American, or:
Take up flags of all nations and place them alongside the American flag.
How many people can read hex if only you and dead people can read hex?
Anyone with the competence to build a nuclear or biological weapon isn't going to bother with a missile. They're going to enter the country - probably perfectly legally, with valid, genuine documents, rent a house, build the weapon, and deliver it to the target in a pickup. Terrorists didn't need GPS to take out the World Trade Centre, and they won't need it to take out the White House.
Starwars (and missile defence) are so last century.
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
Considering that the Russian Federation has just developed a long-range cruise missile capacity, and that China has an advanced aerospace capacity and can make cruise missiles, too, I want their missiles to miss if they're aimed at me. (The purpose of air defense, by the way, is not to shoot down enemy aircraft; it's to make them MISS.)
Tibet, I might point out, is part of China--reluctantly, but part of China, and the Chinese don't have to turn off the GPS to figure out what's there. A good topographic map and a compass will give every Chinese second lieutenant the chance to drive his convoy off the edge of a cliff, just as they do in all armies with new officers.
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Tschuldigung, aber wenn wir hier schon Nazi Sprüche machen, kann ich ja wohl auch 'nen Grammatik-Nazi spielen: Es heißt "ein GPS-System"! Systeme ist Plural und das System ist ein Neutrum, nicht weiblich!
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
150,000 jobs? Doing what? Manufacturing? Installation? Sales? Answering the phone?
-- No sig for you!
Simply don't care that the US pisses people off. This seems to be the prefered method. Understanding is deprecated.
Why should we, the US, be forced put other nation's interests above our own? We may be the dominant nation, but that doesn't mean we have to cave in and support every other nation in their bid to do whatever they want. As far as blocking the Galileo system, why should we let our enemies have an advantage? It's war; it's not fair. It's not like we're blocking it for the world, but as said before, there are some targets that we'd rather not have attacked, and this system would make low-cost, very high-precision guidance systems available. Why should we have to risk it?
You know, Americans think they are so much better just because they have enough guns and nukes to kill everyone on Earth (more than twice, too). We sissy Europeans aren't killed when we are 11 in school by someone who's 10, and when we are 20 many of us haven't seen a gun IRL. I bet that's what makes us so "sissy". Violence is not the only problem solver (this might be unknown to you), and you don't need to be scared of a GPS system anyway. But on the other hand, Americans are afraid of everything.
Now go back to the police state where you came from and continue spreading the bullshit to please Gestapo or whatever you Americans call your freedom police force. Here in Europe we are still allowed to think, say and write whatever we want. Do YOU hate OUR freedom?
The USA shouldn't; and nor should Europe be forced to put the USA's interests above its own
Just one detail: Galileo is much older than the Iraq mess, so what we discovered then had nothing to do with it.
Do you really think terrorists or enemy nations need to use GPS or Galileo to attack these buildings? They didn't need it to attack the WTC or the Pentagon. Besides, there are a lot of things I don't like in the world. That doesn't give me the right to tell people that they don't have free will. Europe can put up their Galileo if they want, just like we put up GPS when we wanted. Oh, and third parties have been accurately been able to aim missiles at the white house for the last 35 years.
Exactly. The US have piled up tons of VX nerve gas, and chemical/atomic weapons (yes, WMD by any definition) and THAT is wasting taxpayers' money, IMHO, not launching another GPS service. Some things have to be done multiple times to learn and incrementally improve the technology. It's good not to have to rely on US technology, but to have everything available locally, because this gives Europe more independence.
And about attacking: honestly, this is thank God the last thing Europeans have in mind. Our American friends are more under attack from the inside: their economy is stumbling, and there is an unprecedented loss of those values that were considered US-American (civil liberties, for instance).
Thankfully Europe is a project about peace and long-term economic strength, not about waging more unnecessary wars. By the way, if you're interested in how GPS is to be seen as a mosaic piece of a larger process of human learning, and how better navigation improves scientific progress and understanding, I recommend the book The Mapmakers (2nd ed).
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I strongly disagree.
... we care. Then we would slowly come back to the usual level of relationships. Then Taiwan would become something like HongKong and slowly be assimilated.
I think that China will simply wait a few decades and recover Taiwan without a full scale invasion (after all Taiwan is mostly worth its infrastructure that would probably be destroyed in case of an invasion).
But even if PRC invaded Taiwan, I bet that the whole world would just stare. We would be doing some protest at the UN, setting up some export restriction, and have some symbolic fleet patrol Pacific ocean to show that
China economy has become too big for occidental economies for us to risk a war against them, and the reverse is also true.
Whatever happens, I don't believe that Taiwan will forever stay separated from the continent, and more likely both systems will slowly converge enougth to merge. After all both share the revendication to be The China.
Anyway protection of Taiwan is a very specific thing that I can't see any big country entering a "world scale war" for. Taiwanese are mostly on their own, it's Real Politic. Expecting anything else is just sweet dreaming.
Like other countries, we can just keep borrowing to pay the interest, so defaulting is not an issue.
Like... Argentina?
is the number of people who believe the world is a totally safe place, and if it isn't so, then America must have made it that way. 'US unilaterism' is another way of saying the French and Germans didn't want to invade Iraq because of oil & weapons deals they had made with Saddam.
"[T]he leader of the free world has responsibilities to listen to the concerns of the free world."
What concerns? Did you know the USA gives more in the way of (government & non-government) aid to other countries than ALL other countries combined? So if America does, as you have predicted, fall, then God help us if we had to depend on the altruism of Europe.
damaged by dogma
What I don't get is why the EU had to reach an agreement with the US? The EU should just use GWB's strategy and do whatever the hell it wants.
https://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
"Would the logical conclusion of this be that the EU has the right to shoot down the US GPS system if the EU felt the GPS system was being used by countries against the best interests of the EU?"
Short answer: Yes
Longer answer: Yes, obviously.
I'm currently looking at the Cat III ILS RWY 16R approach chart for Seattle Tacoma. The Straight in ILS 16R (S-ILS 16R) minimums for CAT IIIc (any aircraft category) is N/A (i.e. no runway visual range limit - i.e. zero visibility). The Cat IIIb has a RVR limit of 300 feet. None of the listed Cat III minimums includes a decision height. The following is written on the chart: "CATEGORY III SPECIAL AUTOLAND EVALUATION REQUIRED: "CATEGORY III ILS-SPECIAL AIRCREW & AIRCRAFT CERTIFICATION REQUIRED" My understanding is that a Cat IIIc approach and landing is a coupled approach only and approach and landing are permitted in zero visibility. I also checked some Cat III charts for Denver and Salt Lake City. All have no RVR limit or decision height for a Cat IIIc approach. All have the same certification notice. Most of the runways in question have multiple ILS approach charts, several non-cat III plates and one Cat III plate. The GPS approach I looked at, Tacoma GPS/VOR 34L/R for example, has a lowest decision height of 840 feet and RVR of 240 feet. The Tacoma GPS approach I looked is for both 34L and 34R so it has to require a visual final and landing since the reference point for the final approach course is between the two runways. Even with better accuracy than is currently available from GPS an autopilot couldn't fly that to landing.
the Spain governement has been overthrown during the last elections
Actually the incumbent party had a comfortable lead in the polls just before the election. Then they had tha Madrid bombings. What do you think they did ? They freaked out and immediately tried to blame it on the ETA (basque terrorists), without even a shred of evidence.
As it emerged that the bombs had been planted by Al Qaeda, the Spaniards got pretty pissed with their government and voted them out of office.
Compare with the US, where a government which actually lied not only to his own people but to the whole damn world has been easily re-elected.
most think that the UK government will pay in the near future too.
If elections took place today, Labour would win hands down. You underestimate Tony Blair's strategical masterpiece: the total occupation of the political center by the Labour party, which forced opposition either to the left of the left (LibDems) or to a growingly darker shade of the right. The Conservative party is not credible any more.
By the way, the conservative party supported the war too.
Thomas-