Europe Building Their Own GPS

An anonymous reader writes "BBC News is reporting that Europe is planning to build their own satellite-navigation network that will be backward and forward compatible. There's going to be 5 levels ranging from free (1m accuracy) to commercial (1cm accuracy)! Provision is also being made for a search and rescue mode where a signal can be sent to confirm that help is on the way. The system will supposedly even work with existing US network after upgrades to the network."

Comments

Re:Don't forget: GPS can equal targeting data

[CaymanIslandCarpedie]

Talk about the ultimate terror weapon "country X, give up ________ or our GPS guided weapon will hit elementary school Y", etc., etc. Somehow I don't think that the free world --or even the non-free countries of the world, for that matter -- has much worry that the US military is going to ever do or be allowed to do something like that, do you?

US: "Iraq, give up your WMD or our GPS guided weapons will hit everything".

Iraq: "Dude, We don't have any! You've had people here looking for 10 years! We'd gladly turn them over if we had them but we don't. PLEASE DON'T BOMB US!!!!

US: "Whatever! You have till the count of three! one..two..BAMMMMM!

Nope, your right nothing to worry about. The US would NEVER do anything like that ;-)

Back to the cold war?

[gotan]

It's really amazing how all this cold war rhetorics is dug up again (or has it never died?). Only Russia is no big threat atm so now it's China. I mean, what is it, is it paranoia or is it that US-Politics needs that big evil enemy to distract their people from the problems at home? It's a never ending story, China, Terrorists, evil Communists ... did anything change since McCarthy or do we need to relive all that crap because of 9/11?

Sure, 9/11 was a tragic event, but even more tragic is what was done to the american ideals of freedom and democracy in the name of the "war on terror".

Now what has all this to do with Galileo vs. GPS you may ask. Well, GPS is under US-military control. ATM they're acting like they could throw a fit of paranoia anytime and switch off all civil GPS functionality. Sory, but that's the picture the US government is sending out into the world: self centered control freaks with tunnelvision that might jump anytime for reasons only they know.

Now you wouldn't trust someone like that with a system your life depends on, but that's exactly what we need: GPS- (or Galileo-) guided navigation systems for planes and ships, fully automated systems relying on accurate GPS-coordinates for positioning, you name it. If it isn't lives depending on these systems it's at least big money.

And no, noone trusts the US to provide a reliable GPS service. They might switch off the system without prior warning because of some perceived terrorist threat (thereby doing more damage worldwide than any terrorist could), they might do it to damage european economy or threaten to do it in some kind of blackmail-scheme, who knows.

And that's why we need Galileo.