Celestial Navigation

[ysabetwordsmith]

After about a 20-year gap, the Navy is teaching celestial navigation again.  Someone there fin-al-ly realized that it was a terrible weakness to rely altogether on technology.  With that, my SF story "Clean Sweep" becomes obsolete.  \o/

Comments

Stories are never obsolete...

[capri0mni]

Just reclassify it as "alternate future history" ;-)

The program is just restarting, but if "navigation by stars" gets recognized as a military security issue, maybe cities will start taking the issue of light pollution seriously ... Well, a gal can dream.

Re: Stories are never obsolete...

[ysabetwordsmith]

Howbout "not canon-compatible" then? :D

Lower light pollution would be awesome too.

Re: Stories are never obsolete...

[capri0mni]

Just make sure you check your spelling -- especially with a military story. ;-)

[siliconshaman]

The Royal Navy never stopped... because we know battle damage happens and computers don't work too well without power.

Yay!

[ysabetwordsmith]

Nice to know somebody had a clue. :D

[johnpalmer]

It's a bit easier to stop than you think. A single GPS doesn't take a lot to keep it running, and that might be enough to steer a ship.

Note that I'm agreeing that I think the Royal Navy is awfully wise never to have stopped. I'm just saying that I can imagine how someone could think there are enough redundancies in the systems not to need to fear loss of all position/direction tools.

Well...

[ysabetwordsmith]

A GPS doesn't take much power to run but it relies on the signal from a distant source. Kill the satellite, kill the GPS. And a satellite is a sitting duck.

Re: Well...

[johnpalmer]

Nod. This is why I was explicitly saying "easier than you think" rather than trying to imply it wasn't still stupid. And I know that the military has been wargaming the possibility of total GPS disruption for at least a decade, which makes the "now, we're starting an introductory course" even less of a truly sensible activity, and much more of a "WTF-too-little WTF-too-late"

Re: Well...

[siliconshaman]

..and China has anti-satellite weapons.

Re: Well...

[ysabetwordsmith]

So do a variety of places.

Re: Well...

[siliconshaman]

Well, Russia had some, but they ran out of money to keep up the laser array. India is trying, Britain and the USA could've, but we had a treaty against militarising space... [although the USA might have a launch vehicle in their automated shuttle that could put something up there.]

Ummm.. drawing a blank on whom else.

Re: Well...

[ysabetwordsmith]

The problem is Russia SOLD a lot of their stuff to raise money. Like plutonium. >_< You want gamble on them not having sold satellite crackers, or materials to make such, to people who hate us? I don't. Lots of people hate America these days.

Re: Well...

[siliconshaman]

I dunno.. a satellite cracker is a lot more complicated and difficult to maintain than say an atomic warhead. [note, I don't mean the delivery system]. Besides, it's probably easier to use a localised jamming signal.

But yeah, ok, maybe someone bought Russia's high-energy laser system and could use it to knock out low earth orbit satellites... which is all it could do. Or their SA/OM missiles which could take out a geo-sync satellite.

But what's the follow up?

knocking out GPS is only useful if you're planning or defending against a ground invasion and want the other side to get lost. Aircraft and cruise missiles have back-up inertial navigation systems.

OTOH, you're far more likely to loose GPS signal due to sunspot activity.

And btw... lots of people don't hate America, but lots of them do fear America, and we all know how that goes. But then, America is not exactly doing anything to inspire trust.

[siliconshaman]

I think it comes down to a single [possibly apocryphal] admiral sometime in the '80's who when asked what was the back-up system in case all the electronics were knocked out by an EMP replied "why then we get out our sextants!".

Random Thought

[shiori_makiba]

Maybe they saw the Avengers?

Remember the scene where Fury has to get the people operating the Helicarrier to turn the thing toward New York and not one of them can figure out which way to go . . . because the computer navigation system is down?

Re: Random Thought

[ysabetwordsmith]

LOL yes, speculative saves the world again. It's more likely they saw the movie than read my story. But my story -- and possibly other people have written similar ones -- has been around a lot longer. People talk. I'm just glad someone finally listened.

Re: Random Thought

[shiori_makiba]

:)

Sometimes you just need a lot of voices saying the same thing over a period of time before it occurs to the powers-that-be that those voices might have a point. Through some of them might have listening for a while - it was just convincing enough people that they weren't crazy or behind the times . . . which might have required waiting for someone(or several someones) of the decision-makers to retire.

Re: Random Thought

[ysabetwordsmith]

That's true. Repetition is required for selling an idea.

[redsixwing]

Hee! Nice.

Occasionally, it's good to have something become inapplicable.