In follow up to what I earlier posted on this thread. Apparently the Galileo system has been designated as civilian, unlike the US GPS, which the US DoD deigns for limited civilian use. Apparently the big conflict the US has with the European Galileo system is this: in the event of an armed conflict (which happen quite frequently in case you haven't noticed), the US would reserve the right to shut down civilian use of the GPS and to jam Galileo. However, jamming Galileo causes the US to jam its own military bandwidth on GPS--at least in theory, since Galileo is not up and functioning yet. This , by the way, would appear to be a source of recent rancour between Germany and US , but one not much discussed in the media. Still yet another US assertion of US right to hegemony even in the face of its loyal allies.
Here is some good background reading:http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/WEBONLY/newslog/news03-28-02.html Europe to build GPS rival On 26 March, the European Union approved the US $2.78 billion Galileo project that would give Europe its own satellite navigation network. Like the United States’ Global Positioning System, Galileo will rely on a constellation of satellites (in this case 30) to provide anyone with a special receiver an accurate reading of their location on earth. But unlike GPS, whose primary purpose is military, Galileo is being planned strictly as a civilian enterprise. The proposal has seen its share of controversy. Some EU officials characterized Galileo as a thinly-veiled ploy to further subsidize the European aerospace industry, while others insisted that it would ensure that the world is not without a global navigation system should GPS be disabled by a terrorist attack. Germany and Britain were among the holdouts that questioned the economics of the project, but Germany did an about-face. The satellites, which will provide navigation data beginning in 2008, will be launched by the European Space Agency. The EU then plans to transfer the operation of the satellites to a private consortium. The U.S. military has expressed concerns that the satellites will interfere with GPS signals, but an EU spokesman said, "These are technical problems which can be easily solved based on mutual confidence." ----- Afterthought: one supposes that if the EU allows something like US Carlyle Group to take a big stake in the consortium they'll get this little tiff all fixed up. But then again CG would only want in if it got more Euro defense and aerospace and/or was allowed to sell off its share for huge profits. CJ __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? New DSL Internet Access from SBC & Yahoo! http://sbc.yahoo.com
