Bush to consider shutting down GPS in extreme emergency

Or because the EU wants to (try to) prove that it still amounts to
something.

 

I'm not so sure. If Europeans trust each other so much, why aren't they
one country?

 

And if Americans trusted each other more they would not be so
certainly divided red and blue.

 

Depends on how big a region you want, how high you fly the jammer, how
many of them you put up, etc. You can jam just about any "region" you
want with the right set of tools. True, jamming won't shut down GPS.
But that's only semantics since it will make it unusable for the vast
majority of users in the jammed region, effectively shutting it down for
them.

Steve

 

Our economy is far stronger and look at the weak dollar!

 

But by luck, rather than by design.

 

Americans are divided because they have sacrificed rational thought for
star appeal. This will come back to haunt them.

 

But at what cost?

Garmin 2610 = $700, paper map = $.50

 

Guess what's currently happening. You can't just say "From now on we're
one country", it's always a long process. It even was for the USA, and
they had the advantage of starting out mostly with empty space, whereas
countries in Europe have up to 3000 years of history of not trusting
each other.

Care to look up the history of the US Civil War? ;-)

Juergen Nieveler

 

So? Captains have learned to do that centuries ago. The biggest hazard
to shipping isn't "Getting lost", it's "Hitting stuff that isn't on the
map".

The Titanic would have been lost even if they'd had GPS.


Juergen Nieveler

 

Yes, but surveying isn't only done to produce maps - indeed most of the
surveying is done to build stuff like roads, bridges and buildings.

Not necessarily. A good surveyor can work without GPS just as easily -
or how would you explain that people where able to build bridges and
roads long before GPS was invented? Not to mention that some of the
most difficult building projects were done where no GPS is available:
Below ground. Think the channel tunnel builders used GPS to build their
tunnels?

Which is why the US Army would want civilian GPS shut down in time of
war: They want to be the only ones with the advantages of GPS. I doubt
the Pentagon would shed a tear over enemy units getting lost - and
they're the owners of GPS, so their rules apply.

Question is: Will the Pentagon listen? Doubtfull, at best.

So you won't pay your GPS bill next month? The Pentagon will be
trembling in fear.


Juergen Nieveler

 

But if you have plenty of time anyway, you can just as well do it
without GPS.


Juergen Nieveler

 

But that's not a problem for the Pentagon, is it?

But that's not a problem for the Pentagon, is it?

Juergen Nieveler

 

But for GPS to work, you need at least 3 satelites. And you can only
get a working solution in the area where the 3 circles cast by each
satelite overlap.

So yes, each satelite itself can be seen from half the planet - but the
area in which they form an effective navigation system still isn't
nearly a whole hemisphere, depending on the orbits of the satelites.

Juergen Nieveler

 

Can you proof that not a single life would be safed by NOT shutting GPS
down, just to keep it running for some people who didn't pay a dime for
that service?


Juergen Nieveler

 

Globally? Less than 1%, I'd say.

Tough luck - the Pentagon owns the system and pays for it, they decide
what happens with it.

Nobody claims that missiles wouldn't work anymore. But the Pentagon can
shut down GPS any time they like, for every reason they can think of -
you can't stop them from doing it, nor can anybody else except the
President of the USA - he's the only person in the chain of command
that ranks higher than the Secretary of Defense, who`s the owner of GPS.

Juergen Nieveler

 

No, because at that time you won't have a DGPS station up - that's what
you are doing at that point, remember?

Of course, there are enough fixed reference points where you could set
up the DGPS, so that's not an issue in the real world.

And the problem is?

So we actually agree on this


Juergen Nieveler

 

More expensive than nothing, of course - GPS is available for free, so
every alternative will be more expensive.


Juergen Nieveler

 

You get electricity for free? Where?

A better example would be your email account: You're using Hotmail,
which is a free service. If Microsoft decides to shut down Hotmail,
you'll have to look for another mailbox. You can't force Microsoft to
continue providing a free service to you, regardless of how important
your mailbox might be to you.


Juergen Nieveler

 

Yes, but timekeeping wasn't the reason why GPS was built. If it had
just been a question of keeping clocks synchronized, there would have
been easier ways to do that.


Juergen Nieveler