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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.
I'm sure any Slashdot post invoking both of these political figures will attract only the most calm and well-reasoned discussion.
If only GPS were enough to stop the shootings-down of airliners by Russians...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
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.
So, which of these links is the original article the large excerpt is from?
I really wish OA was linked separately at the top or something. Why was it the 3rd link? Why not anchor it on "The Atlantic" in the first line?
http://www.theatlantic.com/tec...
Thanks...
Trusting software vendors is no smarter than trus
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+
The ACTOR?!?!?
GPS is great for telling you HOW to to another location. What it can't do is tell you WHY you want to go to that other location. On the other hand you can look at a paper map and go "That looks like a spot I WANT to go to".
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
"Paper maps don't go flat"
My paper maps are pretty flat to begin with... actually, all of my paper is.
Seriously, when did it become OK to revise history that getting shot down by an Russian Su-15 with a Kaliningrad missile is now a crash?
In the immortal words of Socrates, who said; 'I drank what?'
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?
And smartphone-GPS users carry their smartphones in Otterbox cases. If you think either one of those solutions is flawless and guaranteed to work 100% of the time, you must not hike much.
The stars are not visible during the day, but the sun is. Of course, if it's cloudy, you're not going to have the sun or the stars. Which brings us to my original point. No method of navigation is perfect and each has its advantages and drawbacks. Everyone has their own threshholds for what is reasonable and what is necessary.
Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.
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.
or under water. or under canopy. or under anything really.
GPS requires direct line of sight to at least 3-4 satellites.
Anyway it is just a limitation of the system, as does anything.
I started with commercial GPS in 1995 myself, so went though the stage of scrambled to non-scrambled GPS. The oldest device I used was a Garmin SVRY II, which tells me that there was at least one shittier version before that :)
Surprised no one mentioned base stations. Which were really the way commercial GPS got around the military scramble. Old school GPS would communicate, or could be corrected by local base station data, which were at a good known locations and coordinates. Of course I think they are all gone now, as they are no longer needed. Though in some cases the electronics of the day being what they were would require a computer and post interpolation of the data as the devices themselves didn't have the guts to do it.
That said there is nothing stopping the military from turning on the scramble again and making all your new fangled GPS rather useless, now that all the base stations are gone! Which is probably was Russia has their own. As does Japan (sort of). The EU and India are building their own. So much distrust! Or at least perceived dependence on GPS,
Then again, I am pretty sure GPS assist uses cell towers in much the same way, so long as you're in cellphone range you would probably be OK (each tower would be at know good coordinate locations).
In-flight telemetry already exists. Has existed for a while, actually. That is why AF447 was found. Unfortunately it is not really real-time (which surprises me - I develop software for vehicle tracking, it is a very sensible thing to do).
MH17's lesson is: "close the airspace above a war zone". Should be obvious, really.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
It failed its design objective, then.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
So it is Clinton's fault you purchased an inferior product, and that you are not observant enough to watch where you are going?
Just think what wonders we could have if we shot them all.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
SAR stats are going to show that lost hikers have cellphones and no maps. They aren't lost BECAUSE OF GPS - they're lost because they're idiots. Of course they have cell phones. Everyone has one all the time. Of course they have no paper maps - they're idiots. They're lost because they can't read a map, didn't bring a map (electronic or paper), and they have no navigation skills. It's not a problem with the technology, it's a problem with their idiot brains. Plenty of people had to be rescued before GPS came along. And no, you can't locate yourself on the map faster than GPS unless you already know where you are. It takes as long to get ONE compass reading, let alone try and triangulate and all that crap. When you're a little lost and you want to verify your location GPS kicks ass, and nobody's stopping you from confirming the reading by taking a look around.
Couldn't the same be said of people who are stupid enough to try and use their compass and paper map instead of navigating by the stars? I mean, what if your map is blown away by a gust of wind, then you're screwed!
Didn't you read the part where he said he was in the UK? Have you ever seen stars or blue skies in the UK? I sure as hell haven't. Stellar navigation doesn't work when you're looking at the bottom of a cumulus cloud. ;)
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
As someone who uses GPS technology extensively for work, I have to say, that selective avaialibilty is still very much in action. The US can I assume at a push of a button distort the data avaialable. Or is it coincidence that the data reliability is at times very unreliable near Ukraine since the crisis? Not as much to throw off consumer gps navigation devices, but enough to render GPS based targeting systems useless I'd say.