GPS navigation devices work off the system of U.S. satellites to pinpoint geographic location. GPS stands for Global Positioning System, and was first used by the American military as a nuclear deterrent during the Cold War arms race. Ironically, it was during the Cold War that President Ronald Reagan, the epitome of a Cold Warrior, directed that GPS be made available for civilian applications following the Korean Airlines Flight 007 tragedy, one of the tensest moments in the entire Cold War. This incident occurred when a Boeing 747 strayed into the airspace of the now-defunct Soviet Union and was shot down, killing all aboard, including a sitting United States Congressman. Investigations concluded that a navigational error was to blame, and tracking procedures were changed in order to avert similar accidents in the future.
GPS can actually be traced back to World War II and the ground-based radio navigation systems developed during that time, such as LORAN and Decca. Today's GPS allows soldiers get their bearings in the dark as well as unfamiliar territory, provides tracking information on potential targets, guides missiles and bombs, and even helps in the creation of reconnaissance maps. Civilian applications include land surveying and time transfer (synchronization of clocks). Generally speaking, GPS navigation devices are classified as civilian if it cannot be considered munitions, or weapons, by the U.S. government. For example, those capable of operating above sixty thousand feet at speeds of a thousand knots cannot be exported without special licenses. Otherwise, such GPS navigation devices can be easily installed in a ballistic missile.
The technology behind GPS navigation devices is made up of three parts. Most obviously, the satellite system needs to be in place. This comprises some twenty-four to thirty satellites in medium earth orbit. Then there is the control system, which is in turn composed of a master control station and an alternate master control station plus any number of shared and dedicated ground antennae and monitoring stations. Finally, the user component is simply all the individual end-users around the world, military and civilian.
GPS has become a global tool for the common good despite its military origins. Just like the internet, also originally conceived in response to war and the threat of war, GPS has grown beyond such narrow applications in death and destruction to the myriad of commercial, scientific, and recreational uses now available. Almost no aspect of our modern 21st Century lives are not touched by it, from the emergency rescue personnel dispatched to the conversations transmitted over cellular networks.
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