On Thu 2004-02-05T12:56:03 +0000, Markus Kuhn hath writ: > Robustness against U.S. "navigation warfare" was one of the main funding > rationales for Galileo.
And the fact that GPS will fail to be able to report UTC in about 70 years seems intimately entangled with the desire to discontinue leap seconds. The earliest evident suggestion that leap seconds should be discontinued was in a 1999-03 talk by Klepczynski at CGSIC: http://www.navcen.uscg.gov/cgsic/meetings/summaryrpts/33rdmeeting/Presentations/klepczyn.ppt The September meetings of CGSIC have, of late, been coincident with the ION meetings. ION is intimately connected with the GPS establishment, and Klepcynski is notable in that organization: http://www.ion.org/awards/fellowship_programs.cfm This mentions that Klepczynski is currently placed with the US Department of State. I had not realized the relevance of this until Markus Kuhn posted about GPS vis a vis Galileo, but now it seems likely to be related to issues evident here: http://www.state.gov/g/oes/sat/ http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2004/28005.htm http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2004/28006.htm The EU view of the results of last month's meeting in Washington are delicately discussed in http://europa.eu.int/rapid/start/cgi/guestfr.ksh?p_action.gettxt=gt&doc=IP/04/173|0|RAPID&lg=EN&display= with the note that more meetings will happen within the next 2 weeks. > Is seems the Temporal Cold War has begun ... And mean solar time may be its first casualty. Or maybe Galileo will do its signal format right, and allow at least 16 bits in the field that gives the difference between TAI and UTC. That would last for at least 2800 years, which is plenty of foresight. 24 bits wouldn't hurt, and would last for at least 44000 years, by which date mean solar time would need one leap second per day. Presumably by that time humanity will have come up with a better idea. -- Steve Allen UCO/Lick Observatory Santa Cruz, CA 95064 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Voice: +1 831 459 3046 http://www.ucolick.org/~sla PGP: 1024/E46978C5 F6 78 D1 10 62 94 8F 2E 49 89 0E FE 26 B4 14 93