thehotdogpoops (November 30, 1999 at 12:00 am)

@BloatedSensations Technically GPS isn't free because the money to support it comes from taxes. So it is paid by the U.S. taxpayers. Additionally, GPS was strictly for government/military use, but was opened up to the public. So if you look at it that way, we (the public) were given GPS without additional costs. It costs Billions of dollars to maintain these satellites, but we have no additional costs to use it (no subscription for our personal gps devices).

TimJSwan89 (November 30, 1999 at 12:00 am)

GPS is only so accurate because they include Einstein's equations. Otherwise it wouldn't be as accurate.

lesorciercalifornien (November 30, 1999 at 12:00 am)

also, China recently launched the first satellite of Beidou, their own global navigation satellite system, since they obviously don't want to be dependent on the evil imperialists for their military needs. Within a decade, GPS will no doubt be one of several redundant systems which will allow for continuity of service worldwide.

lesorciercalifornien (November 30, 1999 at 12:00 am)

@airjaimika private companies won't, but international organizations could. The European Union is in the process of constructing Galileo, a similar sat-nav system; nine of the satellites are already operational. The Russian GLONASS system has been around since the early '90s. The construction of Galileo has partially been driven by fears of the USAF making the system unavailable, but that is highly unlikely as so much of our infrastructure is dependent on GPS.

grozd100 (November 30, 1999 at 12:00 am)

О , спомняте ли си си Госпожо когато бяха времена и НИЕ немахме възможноста да си ВИ представяме като реаолноуст

airjaimika (November 30, 1999 at 12:00 am)

@BloatedSensations GPS is a US military system, when the time comes they can turn it off, and also they can add an error to the signals , hence making your equipment useless/inaccurate whilst correcting for the error in their own systems.The reason its free for public use is because that way no private company will set up a parallel system that the USAF can not control.

stdavross666 (November 30, 1999 at 12:00 am)

@BloatedSensations american propaganda is the cancer of the world, I agree.

BloatedSensations (November 30, 1999 at 12:00 am)

@stdavross666 Of course they do. But that's inconsequential. They still rely on the GPS sat. signal network for a great many applications. They need the service in place for their own purposes, and while it's in place, there's no practical way to stop others using it. They are NOT providing the sat. system to the world as an act of generosity. I just get a chuckle out of the illustration that the military never misses any opportunity, no matter how small, to throw a little propaganda out there.

stdavross666 (November 30, 1999 at 12:00 am)

@BloatedSensations I think the US military have more functionality than what the public have.

BloatedSensations (November 30, 1999 at 12:00 am)

Lol! What a load of crap. GPS is provided to the world by the USAF free of charge? He makes it sound as though they're just doing it out of the goodness of their own hearts. The USAF designed, implemented, and use it for their own navigational purposes. Because of this, the signals are there, and anyone can pick them up and use use them to feed a positioning device, and it would be a practical impossibility for the gov to enforce anything approaching a total restriction.