On Thu 2004-02-05T12:56:03 +0000, Markus Kuhn hath writ:
> Robustness against U.S. "navigation warfare" was one of the main funding
> rationales for Galileo.
And the fact that GPS will fail to be able to report UTC in about 70
years seems intimately entangled with the desire to discontinue leap
seconds.
The earliest evident suggestion that leap seconds should be discontinued was
in a 1999-03 talk by Klepczynski at CGSIC:
http://www.navcen.uscg.gov/cgsic/meetings/summaryrpts/33rdmeeting/Presentations/klepczyn.ppt
The September meetings of CGSIC have, of late, been coincident with
the ION meetings. ION is intimately connected with the GPS
establishment, and Klepcynski is notable in that organization:
http://www.ion.org/awards/fellowship_programs.cfm
This mentions that Klepczynski is currently placed with the US
Department of State. I had not realized the relevance of this until
Markus Kuhn posted about GPS vis a vis Galileo, but now it seems
likely to be related to issues evident here:
http://www.state.gov/g/oes/sat/
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2004/28005.htm
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2004/28006.htm
The EU view of the results of last month's meeting in Washington are
delicately discussed in
http://europa.eu.int/rapid/start/cgi/guestfr.ksh?p_action.gettxt=gt&doc=IP/04/173|0|RAPID&lg=EN&display=
with the note that more meetings will happen within the next 2 weeks.
> Is seems the Temporal Cold War has begun ...
And mean solar time may be its first casualty.
Or maybe Galileo will do its signal format right, and allow at least
16 bits in the field that gives the difference between TAI and UTC.
That would last for at least 2800 years, which is plenty of foresight.
24 bits wouldn't hurt, and would last for at least 44000 years, by which
date mean solar time would need one leap second per day. Presumably
by that time humanity will have come up with a better idea.
--
Steve Allen UCO/Lick Observatory Santa Cruz, CA 95064
sla_at_ucolick.org Voice: +1 831 459 3046 http://www.ucolick.org/~sla
PGP: 1024/E46978C5 F6 78 D1 10 62 94 8F 2E 49 89 0E FE 26 B4 14 93
Received on Sat Feb 14 2004 - 13:54:09 PST