Global Positioning Systems History is The History of Your Rights Dissolving

Technological history, including global positioning systems history, usually begins in the military world.

When the Soviet Union sent up the Sputnik satellite, a terrified United States ordered the Department of Defense to create the Information Processing Technology Office, to developed the transmission of data through complex networks.

This was led by J.C.R. Licklider and Lawrence Roberts at BBN Technologies in Cambridge Massachusetts. 

Their information technology grew up and moved out on them, however, and in the 1980’s made its way into public awareness, finally reaching the status of the World Wide Web in the early 90s. 

Satellite communications also continued to improve, although the public usually became aware of the developments only as the mass media broadcast the launching of one ‘communications’ satellite after another. 

“Communications” is often a euphemism for spying.

There are really only so many satellites needed for military and civilian phone calls.

The first successfully tested navigational satellite was the Transit, operated by the U.S. Navy in 1960.

One of the first communication satellites, launched in 1963, was Telstar.

Echo and Syncom were other names for the various series of satellites that went into orbit at this time. In the 60’s, the U.S.-Soviet Space Race set the stage for the global positioning systems history to begin.

The effort to launch satellites was an international one, usually controlled by military dollars and mission directives.

Why Does the Military Spend so Much on “Communication”?

American satellites, with a huge and innovative national network of universities and military scientists cooperating together, supported by vast budgets, usually took the lead in advances. 

The Soviets lost ground to American work in the 60’s, while China and Europe began efforts to match development in U.S., and all of the regions were successfully maintaining satellite networks in the 70’s. 

During the 70’s, the complex equations and satellite orbits required for global positioning calculations were developed.

There is a disturbing gap in public records regarding the deployment of GPS satellites during the 60’s and 70’s, however. 

In global positioning systems history, this gap can be explained away with discussions of technical difficulties slowly solved.

Yet the development of spy satellites providing surveillance of Soviet territory proceeded apace. 

It is now commonly acknowledged that the National Security Agency of the United States was obtaining incredible photographs and audiotapes of Soviet military and political activities in the 70’s. 

Why was the global positioning system quiescent at the same time? The answer is, it was not.

Ronald Reagan admitted as much after a horrific incident in 1983. 

Hair Trigger Frightens the Public into Wanting GPS

A Korean airliner, KAL 007, strayed into Soviet airspace and was brutally shot down for its crime of poor navigation, killing 269 people on board. 

In the aftermath, as the Soviet satisfied themselves with accusation of spying, the U.S. Government made the decision to make extant global positioning systems available to the public for the first time, to prevent such wanderings from occurring again. 

Global positioning systems history was now part of the public world. 

Reagan was again a hero, providing comforting eulogies, platitudes and folksy bonhomie, while – in true Reagan form – locking the barn door after the horse was gone.

He fulfilled the same role after the bombing of a Marine barracks in Lebanon and the destruction of the Challenger space shuttle, cause by the publicity-hungry White House pushing a reluctant NASA into launching during a winter freeze.

The public received a frightening gift. 

The GPS was able, after adjustments and modifications that took several years, to provide coverage to anyone with the right equipment on hand, equipment that was compact enough to hold in one hand and cost a little over $100. 

The GPS equipment could tell you exactly where you were located on the planet and exactly where to move if you were lost. 

What else can the equipment do? That’s the problem. We don’t know. 

We are not asked for our opinion on these frighteningly accurate mapping technologies (and remember, these are just the ones we KNOW about – that are freely available in the public domain) and we never will be asked unless we make it clear that we are paying attention.

One can assume that the tracking beacons of Hollywood movies are somehow involved.

There was a block of 20 years during which we know virtually nothing of the engineering designs and purposes woven into the global positioning system. 

Today, China, Russia, Europe and India all have their own GPS projects underway.

This doesn’t mean that the 5 billion people of the world today are all tagged and under mind control. Yet.

But does this mean that no one will ever be lost again? Does this mean that no one can ever be alone again? Global positioning systems history has just begun.