
NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: How likely is a GPS shutdown?
From: Luis Soltero
Date: 2000 Jan 24, 4:27 PM
From: Luis Soltero
Date: 2000 Jan 24, 4:27 PM
I was under the impression that the GPS satellite network still belongs and is managed by the military. So, let me ask the obvious. What happens when the US gets involved in a skirmish or a war and decides that it would be in our best interest to disable the civilian GPS system depriving the enemy of the use of those wonderfully accurate $150 hand held positioning devices. I suspect that the military has its own encrypted version of GPS although this is simply a guess on my part. Once the FAA adopts GPS as its primary navigational system disabling civilian GPS will be much more difficult. Given the above scenario I would expect the likely hood of a GPS shutdown to be exactly equal the likely hood of a skirmish and/or war. i.e. fairly high. --luis