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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.
The actor was actually a union boss that took on the studios for the benefit of the actors, and won.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
In my experience GPS let's you down when you need it the most. More than once I have had to fall back to maps and a compass when the terrain got too rough for GPS to work. As far as confusing directions go talk to the people, if they are still alive, who got stuck or drove their car over cliffs etc. I still do not trust it except under the best conditions and when I have another method to confirm its correctness.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
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.
I believe the 1995 date refers to the date at which the GPS satellite constellation was completed, in other words when the full set of 24 satellites was operational. You need just 4 signals to get a cold location fix without making assumptions, but prior to 1995 it is probable that in some parts of the world, 4 satellites were not visible at certain times. Prior to 1995 the system wasn't complete.
I can't find any information in 1980s GPS units, but given the nature of the calculations required to obtain a locational fix, and the processing power available in that era, they must have been excitingly expensive.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
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...
You won't find this in the Wikipedia article, but there are rumors in some intelligence circles that this flight was actually shot down by the Russians and Ukraine took the rap because they could play the "Duh! We so stupid! Not know what we doing! Soldiers were drunk!" card in exchange for some sort of special favor from Russia. That may not be true and it may be that Ukraine really shot it down through incompetence, but I just wanted to point out that there are some who don't buy the official explanation.
You are right about GPS being available, but with a limited constellation. But the prices weren't awful -- in the sailing world they were comparable with other navigation electronics. I learned to sail during the transition -- people still had LORAN receivers, and long-haul sailors still needed to know celestial navigation, but a GPS was certainly a gizmo you could afford for you boat. But sailors crossing the Pacific might go hours without a GPS fix, because not enough birds were in view.
So it is Clinton's fault you purchased an inferior product, and that you are not observant enough to watch where you are going?
They may or may not need collective bargaining; I am honestly undecided on that point and could go either way. I do however firmly agree with the points I emphasized from the second quoted paragraph, specifically, "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."
The ATC strike threatened to shut down the entire country. In no particular order:
The financial sector would have been shut down, since paper checks still had to be exchanged between banks in those days. Checks were primarily moved via mail, which relies heavily on air travel. This situation persisted until Check 21 was passed, largely in response to the disruption caused by the 9/11 shut down.
Related, USPS would have been crippled, with consequences far and wide. Ditto for Fedex and UPS.
The disruption to air travel would have cost the economy billions of dollars. See 9/11 and the fallout from just three lousy days of shut down, then consider the fact that telecommuting and video conferencing did not really exist in those days, so the economy was that much more dependent on air travel.
Medical flights would have been disrupted, directly placing lives at risk.
Whatever legitimate gripes public sector workers may have they do not get to hold hundreds of millions of people hostage to their demands. You accept certain tradeoffs when you go to work for Uncle Sam; in exchange for job security that private sector workers can only dream about you accept lower pay (vis-a-via the private sector), lousy hours, and the intrusion of politics into the workplace. There's a reason why it's called public service and if you're unwilling to accept those tradeoffs perhaps you should stay in the private sector?
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.