Highly amusing this morning to see the US government playing the "Chicken Licken" card and trying to panic at least its own citizens (and anyone else anywhere else that takes the cynical ploy at face value) through dire warnings that the network of global positioning satellites (GPS) that the world now so routinely relies on could "fail by 2010". This is more about political machinations, xenophobia, and jostlings for preferment and money than anything else writes an unconvinced Martyn Warwick.
The GPS system is 20 years old and, over that time, far, far too many organisations and individuals (including many millions of motorists) have become pathetically dependent on using it to navigate to their destinations. Could be time to get the maps out again, people.
For now, out of a clear blue sky (if you'll forgive the pun), the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) has issued a scare-mongering report claiming that the constellation of satellites "could" (note the "could") "begin (note the "begin") to fail next year.
Concerned US citizens are already contacting government agencies and radio and TV stations to ask whether they are likely to be hit by debris as the birds drop out of the sky to wreak havoc in the Homeland.
These though are the facts of the matter. The GPS system is a jealously-guarded US-owned, military-biased, technological resource to which the rest of the world is allowed some limited access.
This access is permitted because the US government is worried that if some applications (such as vehicle navigation aids) are not made available globally other countries will band together to devise, fund and launch their own global GPS systems over which the US would have no control or sanction (other than to shoot them out of the sky in a time of "crisis" as has already been threatened).
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