China plans global satnav system With navigation satellite constellations rapidly becoming a must-have for any major world power, China has joined Europe and Russia as an aspirant to match US sat nav technology. The People's Republic has announced that it will upgrade its localised Beidou satellite system to global coverage by 2015. The Chinese state Xinhua …
"We've got a Battlecruiser and you haven't."
"We've got nukes and you haven't."
"We've got a GPS satellite system and you haven't."
YAWN! So last century.
Everyone knows that the cutting edge of international, big boys' willy-waving is now:
"We've got frikkin' laser beams* and you haven't."
*Bonus willy inches here for shark cranial mount capability.
Calculation of position is performed at a ground control station in response to a request transmitted from the receiver. This has two fundamental problems
1. Scalability - imagine millions of vehicle navigation systems sending a request every few seconds, each having to be calculated and returned within a second or two to be of practical use. Every receiver sold would require additional central processing power and bandwidth.
2. Central control knows where every single working receiver is.
Mind you, problem 2 could be attractive to a surveillance-obsessed government...
...are like any of the other Chinese crap I own, they should only be in orbit for about 2 months until the 80,000KW peak (53 W actual) solar panals die and the paper thin plastic shell cracks wide open from an impact with a space pebble. At least replacements should only be about $14.99 each.
The Chinese are as good at making goods as any western country (I exclude cars as we know US cars are shit). However, when people want the cheapest possible, they will use the cheapest parts possible, unfortunalty that means cutting corners (or the corners cutting you)
As they say, you get what you pay for....
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