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The Plane Crash That Gave Us GPS
HughPickens.com writes: Sarah Laskow reports at The Atlantic about the aftereffects of the KAL 007 incident, where the Soviet Union shot down a passenger plane on September 1, 1983. All 269 passengers were killed, including a U.S. Congressman en route from New York City to Seoul via Anchorage. At first, the Soviet Union wouldn't even admit its military had shot the plane down, but the Reagan administration immediately started pushing to establish what had happened and stymie the operations of the Soviet Aeroflot airline. It is widely believed that Korean Air Lines Flight 007 was already well off course when the crew routinely radioed that it was over its proper ''way point,'' or checkpoint, at a 90-degree angle to Shemya Island in the West Aleutian chain. Ultimately, the Boeing 747 jumbo jet cut across the lower tip of the Kamchatka Peninsula and the southern tip of Sakhalin Island, where it was shot down by a Soviet fighter.
This resulted in President Reagan making a notable choice. While this choice was reported at the time, it was not the biggest news to come out of this event: Reagan decided to speed up the timeline for civilian use of GPS. The U.S. had already launched almost a dozen satellites into orbit that could help locate its military craft, on land, in the air, or on the sea. But the use of the system was restricted. Now, Reagan said, as soon as the next iteration of the GPS system was working, it would be available for free. It took more than $10 billion and over 10 years for the second version of the U.S.'s GPS system to come fully online. But in 1995, as promised, it was available to private companies for consumer applications. It didn't take long, though, for commercial providers of GPS services to start complaining about the system's "selective availability" which reserved access to the best, most precise signals for the U.S. military. In 2000, not that long before he left office, President Clinton got rid of selective availability and freed the world from ever depending on paper maps or confusing directions from relatives again.
This resulted in President Reagan making a notable choice. While this choice was reported at the time, it was not the biggest news to come out of this event: Reagan decided to speed up the timeline for civilian use of GPS. The U.S. had already launched almost a dozen satellites into orbit that could help locate its military craft, on land, in the air, or on the sea. But the use of the system was restricted. Now, Reagan said, as soon as the next iteration of the GPS system was working, it would be available for free. It took more than $10 billion and over 10 years for the second version of the U.S.'s GPS system to come fully online. But in 1995, as promised, it was available to private companies for consumer applications. It didn't take long, though, for commercial providers of GPS services to start complaining about the system's "selective availability" which reserved access to the best, most precise signals for the U.S. military. In 2000, not that long before he left office, President Clinton got rid of selective availability and freed the world from ever depending on paper maps or confusing directions from relatives again.
But in 1995, as promised, it was available to private companies for consumer applications
Say what? There were consumer GPS receivers in the late 1980's, in fact in the first Gulf War (2 August 1990 – 28 February 1991) many soldiers used commercial units purchased from US retailers because the crypto hardened milspec units were in such short supply. In fact I'm not sure what they're referring to with the 1995 date, since the biggest change wrt consumer use was Clinton's order to permanently disable selective availability, but that wasn't until 2000.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
And then crushed other unions
Or the shooting down of airliners by Americans...
That was in 1988 — before Reagan-intensified initiative was completed and GPS came into common usage.
Or the Ukrainians - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...
Interestingly enough, the Ukrainians responsible for that disaster are currently Russians — the missile came from Crimea...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
I don't know what you mean by 'celebrated revenge' but that was simply an accident. The ship's crew misidentified the aircraft and made a bad decision. The US paid restitution to families of those who were killed, as well. You're trying to make it sound as if they knowingly shot down a civilian aircraft. What would that accomplish?
GPS doesn't tell you how to get anywhere. It tells you where you are and that's it.
And I was there.
Reagan may have sped up this or that, but
- GPS was designed as a mixed civilian / military system. That's why there WAS selective availability (AKA SA - fuzzing of civilian accuracy). SA was designed to give 30 meter accuracy, and lots of civilian needs could still be met with that accuracy.
- Lots of us wondered why KAL 007 didn't have GPS - a 30 meter error was tiny compared to their actual error.
- There was intense commercial interest in GPS in 1983.
- Use of GPS has always been free - even under SA, you either had the keys to decrypt it, or not.
- The real big push for commercial development came during the first Gulf War, when we didn't have nearly enough military units, and so Charley Trimble (Trimble Navigation - and others) got a huge order to send outdoor units to the Persian Gulf ASAP - AND they turned off Selective Availability (globally, for the duration).
The part about Clinton and SA was accurate. However, by the 90's. a lot of people were working on work-arounds for SA. SA implemented by making each satellite's clock go fast and slow deliberately, so you could fix it by having a ground station with a good clock looking at the same satellite, and sending corrections, so removing SA wasn't as big a deal as it would have been in 1985.
If you're referring to the Air Traffic Controllers you may wish to consider this quote from that Tea Party wacko known as Franklin Delano Roosevelt: (emphasis mine)
All Government employees should realize that the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service. It has its distinct and insurmountable limitations when applied to public personnel management. The very nature and purposes of Government make it impossible for administrative officials to represent fully or to bind the employer in mutual discussions with Government employee organizations. The employer is the whole people, who speak by means of laws enacted by their representatives in Congress. Accordingly, administrative officials and employees alike are governed and guided, and in many instances restricted, by laws which establish policies, procedures, or rules in personnel matters.
Particularly, I want to emphasize my conviction that militant tactics have no place in the functions of any organization of Government employees. Upon employees in the Federal service rests the obligation to serve the whole people, whose interests and welfare require orderliness and continuity in the conduct of Government activities. This obligation is paramount. Since their own services have to do with the functioning of the Government, a strike of public employees manifests nothing less than an intent on their part to prevent or obstruct the operations of Government until their demands are satisfied. Such action, looking toward the paralysis of Government by those who have sworn to support it, is unthinkable and intolerable. It is, therefore, with a feeling of gratification that I have noted in the constitution of the National Federation of Federal Employees the provision that "under no circumstances shall this Federation engage in or support strikes against the United States Government."
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Not that I normally defend US military action... but come on.
Why was the US warship there in the first place? Iran was at war with Iraq, and had started to attack US oil tankers off shore. The US Military sent US Naval ships as escorts. Then Iran started actively attacking US warships. That ship had been under attack by Iranian gun boats just and hour earlier and that plane had taken off from a based that F14 attack craft were routinely operated out of.
I do normally defend US military action but I will not defend the shoot down of the Iranian airliner. Captain Rogers was a trigger happy asshole, with a poorly trained crew that was oblivious to what their instruments were reporting. The instruments aboard the USS Vincennes reported a climbing aircraft that was squawking Mode III (Civilian) IFF; the crew somehow interpreted this as a descending aircraft squawking a military code, which would actually be a legitimate threat to the ship, but that was not what was reported by their instruments.
If you want to be generous to Captain Rogers you can call it an example of scenario fulfillment but I'm not willing to give him that much benefit of the doubt. The Commanding Officer of at least one neighboring ship thought he was reckless and trigger happy (*) and his crew's failure to properly operate their ship represents a gross failure of training and accountability that the Captain of said ship is ultimately responsible for.
(*) See the various media interviews of Commander Carlson, Captain of the USS Sides, which was assigned to the same mission and tracked Iran Air Flight 655 on her own radar prior to the shootdown.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.