Bush Prepares for Possible GPS Shutdown

"Jeff Franks" writes:

If terrorists are somehow
using our own GPS system against us, then I'm all for shutting it down (or
limiting it to military use somehow).

Now this line of reasoning scares me. That, and that the previous
sentence will be completely misconstrued by all the red-staters.

One thermonuclear device going off at say 100,000' will wipe out communications over a very wide area.


"Andrew Gideon" wrote in message online.com...
Jay Honeck wrote:

I didn't say they could shut down the internet. I said they would shut
down
your ACCESS to the internet. Surely you aren't so gullible as to believe
that the government couldn't shut down AOL, Mediacom, Qwest, and the dozen
or so other ISPs that provide 95% of Americans with internet access in
time of national emergency?

After dealing with numerous backbone firms: I seriously doubt that Qwest
could easily/quickly shut down Qwest. THe same is true for any of the
other backbones. AOL...maybe. It's a different kind of service, and one
could probably "attack" it via the mechanism it uses for
authentication/authorization.

- Andrew

Blueskies wrote:

One thermonuclear device going off at say 100,000' will wipe out
communications over a very wide area.

A lot of the EMP damage comes from the impulse generated over long cables.
Fiber obviously lacks this problem.

Still, there are other issues (even if we ignore the policital backlash of a
US President EMPing the US {8^). For one, we'd lose a lot of our orbital
traffic (are the GPS satellites hardened against EMP?).

Scientific American did an article on this subject not too many months back.

- Andrew

On Thu, 16 Dec 2004 21:32:25 GMT, "C Kingsbury"
wrote:

Aren't you required to have means to execute a non-GPS approach at either
your destination or alternate to be legal?

Not necessarily. Depends on the GPS.


Ron (EPM) (N5843Q, Mooney M20E) (CP, ASEL, ASES, IA)

You forget...the red-staters are the one's with the guns.....


"Bob Fry" wrote in message
...
"Jeff Franks" writes:

If terrorists are somehow
using our own GPS system against us, then I'm all for shutting it down
(or
limiting it to military use somehow).

Now this line of reasoning scares me. That, and that the previous
sentence will be completely misconstrued by all the red-staters.

On Thu, 16 Dec 2004 21:31:57 -0500, Andrew Gideon
wrote in ne.com::

(are the GPS satellites hardened against EMP?)

Protection circuits are off the shell items:
http://www.meteolabor.ch/e/uss220e.htm . The GPS satellites, being
military in origin, would certainly include them.

Schmoe,

How much would that suck during a GPS approach to minimums far away from
the
crisis? Would WAAS stations be shutdown to?

One of the functions of WAAS (apart from accuracy enhancements) is integrity
monitoring. In the above mentioned case you would get a "integrity warning"
(in a predetermined time interval after the shutdown, IIRC 6 seconds) if the
satelites used for your navigation solution are affected, and should go
missed (or continue on an other nav-source, if operational and monitored).

Regards

Kai

set back by what critics
called a stunning failure of its first full flight test in two
years.

I would hate having my experiments all open to public scrutiny.

On Fri, 17 Dec 2004 02:20:07 -0800, "Slip'er" wrote
in lpywd.66048$Af.42511@fed1read07::

set back by what critics
called a stunning failure of its first full flight test in two
years.

I would hate having my experiments all open to public scrutiny.


The Missile Defense Shield (or whatever they're calling it) is being
*DEPLOYED* now, before it is fully developed! If it were merely an
experiment, it's lack of performance might be more reasonable.

But hey, it's only a trillion dollar bill.* :-(


* The News Hour, PBS

Schmoe,

How much would that suck during a GPS approach to minimums far away from the
crisis?


How much would that suck for the huge part of the rescue and police force that
totally rely on GPS and have to respond to the crisis?

Senseless fear-mongering

--
Thomas Borchert (EDDH)