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Doubts About Future GPS Reliability
loped_index writes "IT Week reports that the U.S. GPS system is in a delicate state, and that full coverage could be lost if older satellites fail faster than the current rate. From the article: 'The system relies on a network of satellites, which cannot be repaired once launched and have a limited lifespan. Sixteen of the present 28 satellites were built to last seven and a half years, but are now between eight and 14 years old. Twenty-four satellites are required for full coverage.'"
So what we're hearing is that we'll need to lose five GPS satellites - 18% of them - before GPS isn't 100% available world-wide 100% of the time.
Of course, an event could cause us to lose 100% of them at once. But if we just fail one at a time, the redundancy appears to be sufficient. Losing one (or even four) satellites isn't a problem. When one fails, you shoot up another. When a bunch of them fail at once - well, it could happen, but at that point all the redundancy in the world likely isn't going to help.
GPS is a pretty cool technology, but sadly some vendors are crappy when it comes to Linux or even Mac support. Platform support is what we should be pissed about. Damned Garmin just refuses to support anything well except Windows, perhaps because Garmin's desktop software developers aren't permitted to do anything except maintain their ancient Windows software. Some people have managed to get this stuff to work on Linux and the Mac, but it just ain't the same as full, documented support.
Maybe the Mac is too hard for them.