Bush to consider shutting down GPS in extreme emergency

[Sam Wormley]

A good surveyor can work without GPS just as easily -

Often, but not necessarily... there are situations where line
of site is impossible that are overcome by professional GPS based
survey instruments.

 

[Sam Wormley]

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?

Can you show that removal of those signals after the attack has started,
would change its outcome, if at all?

 

[Sam Wormley]

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.

I hate to tell you this, Nieveler, but DGPS reference stations only
provide *corrections* to GPS.... The don't substitute for GPS signal.
You'll need something like LORAN for that.

 

[Sam Wormley]

Isn't the problem of the owners of GPS. The users of GPS don't pay for
it, and they get what they pay for.

We pay's every year. Government goods and services have never been free.

 

[Sam Wormley]

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

The people own the system and the decisions as to it use and stewardship
are equally shared by DOT and DOD and as funding is provided for by the
US Congress. Cooperative effort.

 

[Sam Wormley]

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.

Timekeeping was certainly on of the reasons GPS was built. Don't be
so naive Nieveler--Read the literature.

 

[Sam Wormley]

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

Thanks for making that point!

 

[Sam Wormley]

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.

I pay, in part, for part the internet backbone every year.

 

[Sam Wormley]

Our company has a contract that says in case of downtime our
connectivity will be restored within 8 hours.




Don't know the specifics of the contract for electricity, but it's well
below 4 hours IIRC. Plus, in case of work on our power substation, we
get sufficient advance notice to rent a large diesel generator to keep
the IT department up and running.




Hospitals tend to have enough electricity generating capacity to go for
several days without external power, and they also have enough water
stored for some time. Even after huge natural disasters, hospitals are
supposed to keep working.




In times of crisis, people get told to keep a small stockpile of food
at home.




Just like Internet access, companies tend to have tight contracts about
how to handle outages




Stockpiles again




For the industrial users, there are either contracts handling it, or
they even have their own water wells. BTST.




Just HOW can you run out of air? ;-)




Indeed. And in case something fails that you won't get a guaranteed
repair time for, you'll have to have an alternative for it.

To minimize the economic burden on society--don't take infrastructure
down.

 

[Iolaos]

Think the channel tunnel builders used GPS to build their
tunnels?

They did.

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.

Which is, of course, precisely why Galileo is being built.

 

[Alan Browne]

It's the FAA's job to pay for those. A tax is collected on every
passenger who boards any airliner and put into the airport trust fund to
pay for this. Certainly not every airport will get a precision approach,
but more are coming. And the lighting isn't necessarily required for a
precision approach - only to get the approach minima down to the lowest
possible. It's possible to have a precision approach to a runway with no
approach lights. The minima will be higher, of course, but it's still
better than an NDB approach that only gets the aircraft into the general
vicinity of the airport, or even a non-precision GPS approach that
encourages 'dive and drive' techniques. Precision GPS approaches are
coming.

I don't know the funding regulations in the US, but I doubt that it is as
generous to small airports as you suggest.
If you don't have the minimum lighting in place, then your precision approach
will have a DH so high as to be no better than a non-prec. approach.

Cheers,
Alan.

 

[Juergen Nieveler]

I pay, in part, for part the internet backbone every year.

The Internet backbone in the US is government-owned? Thank god I live
in Europe - DECIX is funded by the ISPs connected to it, which means
that politicians can argue all they like, they don't get near it


Juergen Nieveler

 

[Juergen Nieveler]

It's a problem for the Pentagon just as it is for everyone else.

No. GPS would still be available to Pentagon "customers" - it just
would be gone for the freeloaders.

The Pentagon pays bills, follows the laws of physics, and uses the
toilet just like everyone else. You may be confusing it with Mount
Olympus or the Land of Oz.

But the Pentagon isn't answerable to civilians - it's only answerable
to the President, who in turn would have to answer to Congress and
Senate. But if HE gives the order, using his privileges as President
(stating "Clear and Present danger", or suchlike), it would be
difficult at best for Congress to argue against that.


Juergen Nieveler

 

[Juergen Nieveler]

It's not their job to worry about Europeans or Africans.

We actually agree on something! Will wonders never cease?

If you ask them, however, they'll tell you that its also not their job
to worry if the FedEx parcel tracking system keeps working.

Juergen Nieveler

 

[Juergen Nieveler]

Can you show that removal of those signals after the attack has
started, would change its outcome, if at all?

Can you show that it would be bad to at least try it?


Juergen Nieveler
--
When God was creating the human race, he lined up all the males on one
side and all the females opposite. Then he asked, "Which of your species
would like to urinate standing up?" Well, the males went crazy, shouting
that they wanted to pee standing up. "Fine", says God, "Women get multiple
orgasms."

 

[Juergen Nieveler]

I hate to tell you this, Nieveler, but DGPS reference stations only
provide *corrections* to GPS.... The don't substitute for GPS signal.
You'll need something like LORAN for that.

Yes, but you still have to know the exact location of the DGPS station
so that it can calculate the corrections, don't you? Just putting it
somewhere and switching it on won't help.


Juergen Nieveler

 

[Juergen Nieveler]

But that luck is history. It's the future that counts.

Can't help you there, my crystal ball is broken. Try sending boxes of
pretzels to the White House, it almost worked a few years ago...


Juergen Nieveler

 

[Juergen Nieveler]

The Pentagon is not a sovereign state; it works for the civilian
population. And it does whatever it is told to do.

It does what it gets told by the Secretary of Defense, who is only
answerable to the President.

Nobody has ever claimed that GPS will be available for free to the
public al the time - so nobody can complain when its gone.

You talk about the Pentagon as if it were some sort of foreign
invader. The Pentagon is nothing more than a group of civil servants,
sworn to do as they are told.

Yes, and they get told by their superiors, not by you.

Actually, Congress can stop it also, by not signing the checks.

Just how long do you think it would take for the congress to react?
Congress doesn't have oversight over GPS, if the decision is taken to
shut it down it will be down in less than 24 hours. Congress could
protest, but that would take time - and in the meantime the system would
stay down.

The United States owns GPS, not the Secretary of Defense.

But SecDef controls it, and there's no ruling so far telling him not to
turn it off. Or did you hear any protest from congress or senate when
the announcement that started this thread was made?


Juergen Nieveler

 

[Juergen Nieveler]

Often, but not necessarily... there are situations where line
of site is impossible that are overcome by professional GPS based
survey instruments.

In the old days it would have taken considerably longer - you'd have
fixed a set of points in the general direction of where you want to go,
and repeat the process from there.

There's a 2000 year old road that goes straight from one city to the
other for 50 miles or so, only a few miles from where I'm sitting: It
connected Cologne and Aachen during roman times. And from Aachen, there
was a road to Paris...

True, they're not millimeter-accurate, but accurate enough for the aim
that people tried to achieve: Building a straight road without missing
the target city by several miles. And yes, at one point there is a bend
in the road, where a hill was too steep - the road goes around, and
goes straight again as if they'd drawn a line right through the hill.

GPS makes things easier and cheaper, but that doesn't mean people were
incapable of doing things without it.

Juergen Nieveler

 

[Juergen Nieveler]

Can you prove that no lives would be lost by shutting it down? The
burden of proof is upon the party wanted to shut down critical national
infrastructure.

Indeed. But that person would be the President, and he gets payed to
take such decisions. If he decides to do so, you aren't going to change
it.


Juergen Nieveler