Europeans sure know how to celebrate a Saturday night! While I spent the good part of Happy Hour knocking back shots, our cousins from across the ocean shot a satellite up into space. The Giove-B satellite, a demonstrator that will test key technologies needed in satellite navigation systems, ascended to the heavens at 22:16 GMT.
Leave it to that nest of fat bureaucrats called the European Union to fix what a consortium of eight european companies have not been able to pull off: Galileo, a former excommunicated astronomer turned global positioning system, is in a “dead-end street”.
The 30-satellite system promised extreme accuracy to everyone around the world without the limitations of the US government-controlled GPS. According to German Transport Minister Wolfgang Tiefensee, now it “is going through a deep and grave crisis” which, for those of you outside the Old Continent, means: “we are in deep shit.”
The companies in charge of running the show have been unsuccesful and, with only one test satellite in orbit and the second one still grounded with technical troubles, it looks like the european taxpayer (that’s me, for one) will have to pony up those funny colored bills to finance their incompetence. Quite frankly, I didn’t need a GPS to tell me that we are completely lost this side of the pond. – Jesus Diaz
Galileo system ‘in a deep crisis’ [BBC News]
