The story of the Global Positioning System (GPS) is like a walk through the turbulent history of the 20th century. Although today it’s best known for car navigation on family vacations, the system’s accuracy and reliability was perfected as a means to guide nuclear weapons to their grim destinations. GPS receivers now appear in our phones, watches, tablet computers, cameras and cars. Here are a few things you might not know about the global positioning system.
1. It was born in part when an engineer contracted tuberculosis.
The basic ideas for GPS came from several precursor systems from the forties and fifties, including one called Decca (named for the record company now owned by Universal Music Group). Decca used a network of ground beacons transmitting radio waves that were in turn registered by receivers. Based on the strength of various beacon waves, navigators could triangulate their location. The British would use Decca extensively during World War II.
But where did it come from? William J. O’Brien, an engineer, contracted tuberculosis in 1936. During a two-year hiatus from work as a result of his illness, O’Brien got to work on a pet project to measure the ground speed of aircraft. When the basic work was completed, he had a friend at Decca Records present it to the British military for possible applications. They initially passed. In 1941, however, the navigational utility of the technology became clear, and the military reconsidered. The Decca system was given the codename “Admiralty Outfit QM” and was deployed for testing. Decca flourished after the war, and remained in operation until 2000.
2. GPS has never been shut down by the U.S. — but it could be.
GPS has remained in continuous operation since 1995, when it was formally declared operational. On December 15, 2004, President George W. Bush issued an order allowing for the deactivation of GPS in the event of a national catastrophe. Likewise, he ordered the Department of Defense to come up with a process for disabling competing positioning systems, such as Galileo, the European Union program. Specifically, the goal would be to keep terrorists from using global positioning to launch an attack. Though the president would seem to still retain this authority, it has never been invoked.
3. Speaking of Galileo, there are competing positioning systems out there.
The U.S. didn’t want the European Union to build its own navigation system, citing the importance of the president of the United States to have sole dominion over the on/off switch in the event of a military strike. The E.U. went forward anyway. The U.S. countered by essentially saying, “Well, OK, do what you want, but we’re going to shoot down your satellites if we need to.” The E.U. compromised by changing the frequency of its satellites, allowing the U.S. to jam them if necessary (without compromising the integrity of GPS). This seems to have made everybody happy, and Galileo will be completed in 2019.
Meanwhile, China is building a global version of its Beidou Navigation System (which is named after the Chinese words for Big Dipper). After initially signing on with the E.U. to help with Galileo, China decided they could do a better job working solo. Their system will be completed in 2020.
4. And of course, there’s Russia.
Russia gets special mention because their GLONASS positioning system plans call for the construction of ground-based “monitoring stations” on U.S. soil. This just seems like a bad idea, even with only a casual glance at history. See, the reason GPS is so accurate—indeed, the whole reason it was funded to begin with—is because the United States wanted a way to guide intercontinental ballistic missiles to specific targets in the Soviet Union. For obvious reasons, it might not be a good idea to give detailed targeting information of U.S. soil to a hostile power that also happens to have the largest total number of nuclear warheads in the world. Today, the Defense Department and CIA are lobbying hard to prevent the State Department from granting Russia permission to begin construction. (For what it’s worth, if you own a smart phone, chances are it is capable of receiving GLONASS signals.)
5. GPS is so great that we’re starting to worry.
The great thing about GPS is that it’s a totally accessible system that has found its way into practically every gadget, weapon, and vehicle in the world. The bad thing about GPS is that it’s a totally accessible system that has found its way into practically every gadget, weapon, and vehicle in the world. The Army has recently begun to worry about our overreliance on GPS in combat operations. The problem is that GPS signals can be scrambled, and that can mean trouble on the battlefield. In 2010, DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency, began work on an alternate means of positioning that can even calculate underwater locations. They came up with an eight-cubic-millimeter chip containing three gyroscopes, three accelerometers, and an atomic clock. The device can figure out location, time, and direction without the need for satellites. (Note well that it is illegal for an American to use a GPS jamming device, and the consequences for doing so are severe.)
