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Second Galileo Test Satellite Now in Orbit
Simon (S2) writes to mention that Europe's second Galileo navigation satellite reached orbit this past weekend. Galileo is promising to offer several technological advances in comparison to the US-based GPS system but no longer promises to be a guaranteed service. "The Galileo programme now seems certain to go ahead, after a prolonged and painful shift from partly-private financing of the construction to public funds taken from unspent EU farm subsidies. This money would normally have been returned to donor nations, with the UK, Germany and the Netherlands as the biggest three. London MPs have expressed doubt as to whether the UK will receive value for the money it will pay, but have acknowledged that the British government doesn't actually have any choice about Galileo under EU funding rules."
Wow! They are up to two satellites? Does this mean I can tell which hemisphere I'm on?
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
Why London's MPs? What's so special about them?
There are 645 MPs in the UK, of which only 74 are in London. Quite why they should be supposed to have some special insight into Galileo or farming subsidies is beyond me.
--- These are not words: wierd, genious, rediculous
Yes because GPS is owned and controlled by the most dangerous army in the world !
int main() { while(1) fork(); }
Simple: as far as English politics is concerned (and UK politics to a lesser extent), once you pass outside the M25 you enter a deserted wasteland which extends as far as the Channel, the North Sea and the Irish Sea (or possibly the Atlantic, but no Londoner has ever travelled that far to check).
On the other hand, I wouldn't tell them. Just keep quiet and maybe they won't interfere with your life too much.
Galileo is intended to provide more precise measurements to all users than available through GPS or GLONASS, better positioning services at high latitudes and an independent positioning system upon which European nations can rely even in times of war or political disagreement.
The last part is less of an issue now...
A reason given for Galileo as an independent system was that, though GPS is now widely used worldwide for civilian applications, it is a military system which as recently as 2000 had Selective Availability (SA) that could be enabled in particular areas of coverage during times of war, and therefore Galileo's proponents argue that civil infrastructure, including aeroplane navigation and landing, should not rely solely upon GPS. On May 1, 2000, the President of the United States signed an order disabling SA, and in late 2001, the entity managing GPS confirmed that the intent is to never re-enable selective availability.[14]. Though Selective Availability still exists, on September 19 2007, the US Department of Defense announced that they would not procure any more satellites capable of implementing Selective Availability.[15] This means the next wave of Block IIF satellites launching in 2009 will no longer support SA. As older satellites are deorbited and replaced, as part of the GPS Modernization program, SA will cease to exist. The modernization program also contains standardized features that allow GPS III and Galileo systems to inter-operate, allowing a new receiver to utilize both systems to improve accuracy.
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By that same token, I wonder if the EU Galileo satellite network will be as generously shared with the general public as the US GPS system is with the world.
:)
Now that I've got the nationalist pride bullshit out of the way, any system that can provide better and more accurate coverage is certainly welcome in my book. They could call the new satellite system "The Flying Turds" and I'd be ok if it let me get better than accurate to 12 feet.
More Twoson than Cupertino
I've heard that US (government) paying US farmers to grow food for Africans as opposed as Africans growing food for themselves didn't help either.
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
It's probably because the current GPS system has one owner who can shut if off at will?
And it while we're at it, lets give the great city of Bristol the power to take back the money for projects *they* don't think are a good idea.
Generally when having a overall budget you do not give the constituent parts the ability to pick and choose. The Galileo project is part of the overall EU budget, therefore the UK doesn't get to second guess the distribution. (never mind that the UK pays far to little into the budget anyway).
The original post was a mess. But subsidies in richer nations do lead to poverty and starvation elsewhere. By subsidizing grain production, prices have been artificially low for many years. This means poor farmers can't compete and stop producing as much. The added imports is a drain to those countries' economies. If there is any disruption to the supply of grain, either through famine, currency problems, or prices jumping on the imported grain, the local population suffers.
Had grain prices gone up slowly, it would have been a good thing. It was the sudden shift to ethanol plus crop problems in several world breadbaskets that pushed up prices. If sufficient grain had been grown locally, it wouldn't be as much a problem (maybe even a plus if they could export and get hard currency for it).
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
Galileo is a GPS. The US military system that everybody refers to incorrectly as "the GPS" is really called Navstar.
All I want is a secure system where it's easy to do anything I want. Is that too much to ask ~~ Randall Munroe
RelevantElephants: A Somatic WebComic...
Armies are like guns. They are not dangerous, until you (aim and) pull the trigger.
That being said, as a European, I'm not comfortable with a critical infrastructure like GPS in the hands of the US. The current administration has shown that it is incapable of handling the power and responsibilities that come with being a superpower. Former US presidents warned for the influence of the Military-Industrial complex, but that lesson seems to have been forgotten, resulting in "Bringing peace and democracy to the Middle East".
It only takes one man to change the Wisdom of the Crowd to Tyranny of the Masses.
Instead of starting a new system from scratch, they could have made it an extension to GPS. Imagine better altitude detection, less ionosphere interference. Good thing those farm subsidies went to good use.
By the same token ... 'it is so sad that it is necessary to have that may [operating system kernels] pretty much doing the same thing'.
Personally I think diversity is good! No single organization or country should control a critical piece of technology.
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But we are a government of the people, by the people, and for the people.
So if we have the most dangerous government in the world, it's because of the people behind that government.
Now Ma, go fetch me my gun so I can get this euroweanie off our front lawn!
... And Europe is pissed that the on-off switch is in Washington D.C. rather than in Brussels ...
Currently the GPS system is being upgraded to offer increased accuracy and additional features. This is known as GPS III and is scheduled to be fully operational by 2011 to 2013 (or roughly the same time as Galileo is supposed to be). According to some sources, it will enable accuracies down to 1m un-augmented.
Why is that sad? What's wrong with having multiple separate systems, anyway?
I mean, I'm a chest-thumping nationalistic patriot, but even I can see that the extra system will be a good thing for everyone. On the political side, we won't have to worry about Europeans getting their panties in a bunch over our control of our, very useful, system, because they'll have their own. On the device side, it's always good to have redundancy, even if the US didn't reserve the right to selectively degrade the signal without warning for any reason.
In fact, I think you'll find that the European system and the US system will cooperate more than anything else. Any selective degradation for tactical reasons will most likely be mirrored by the other system; as your descendants, we do have similar interests more often than not. And flight-rated GPS will be much more robust: tests of the selective availability feature can be alternated between systems and locations, so aircraft will always have at least one fully functional signal to rely on.
That said, I think it's kind of odd how they're paying for it: Member countries of the EU should decide whether or not to fund it, "surplus" subsidy money shouldn't just be re purposed as if it doesn't belong to anyone. It belongs to the states that provided it, and ultimately to their citizens.
That's what saddens me: when politics "forces" an expedient solution rather than a righteous one.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
>as "the GPS" is really called Navstar.
/. and the guys that fly it 24/7 - i'm gonna go with the guys in the green jammies. /sarcasm
Hang on a sec...
(/me gets up from my POS government Dell desktop, walks onto GPS Ops floor, asks the SrA at the SVO workstation what is he flying.)
(/me walks back to my POS dell and types this post)
well, not to be difficult with you, jeremyp, but the Senior Airman WHO IS ACTUALLY FLYING THE SATELLITES tells me he calls it "GPS". And since he, and the other folks over there (/me points at wall across from my cubicle) that are flying it already have a name for it, between some goof on
Seriously, though, no one has called it NAVSTAR in i don't know how long. I've been working GPS for almost a decade, and i've not one single time heard anyone use the word "NAVSTAR" at work without meaning it in a joking manner.
oh, and i think that we should, in all seriousness, give a big hand to those cute Euros for their cute little satellites. I'm sure that their pay-for-use, non-reliable system that is being paid for by stealing money from the much smarter European people will have no problems whatsoever, and since it will most likely LOSE more money per week than Concorde lost in its whole lifespan - and we saw their stick-to-it-aveness with Concorde, didn't we? - i bet everyone will be relying on Galileo for easily, 2, maybe 3 months before someone in France or Brussles or wherever they go to fight about things will pull the plug because its not green enough or not communist enough or something....
guns kill people like spoons make Rosie O'Donnell fat.
as a European, I'm not comfortable with a critical infrastructure like GPS in the hands of the US.
If you don't like it then you should launch your own damn satellites and... oh wait never mind.
And you're gonna need a lot more than just two! Better steal some more money from the farmers...