Next message: Bill: "Re: Question regarding mathematics of Captain Thomas Sumner's calculations:"
> BTW, does the US military still own the GPS satellites, or the
> system has been "privatised", as it happened to the Internet
> in the middle 1990-s?
The US still owns one system. Russia owns a second, and the EU is in the process
of deploying a third. I doubt any will ever be privatized because they are still
military assets, even if the public is generously allowed substantial (but not
complete) access to them.
"It is hard for me to imagine a scenario when the GPS system
will be targeted. It has to be a war of two superpowers..."
I find it easy to imagine. Satellites can be knocked out very easily once you
have launch capability, and all sorts of small players and commercial companies
now either HAVE that, or shortly will. I can easily imagine someone with a
grudge hiring a private launch of an ostensibly innocent satellite, which in
turns releases or becomes a debris field that does massive damages. (The GPS
satellites are armored, but how extensive the armor is, is classified.)
If China ever decides to take Taiwan, they would be a prime suspect to do this,
in order to cripple US Pacific Fleet assets and responses. And they can do it
in-house.
