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Could Galileo be for the chop
Article by: Darren Griffin
Date: 7 Feb 2013
The the European Union in the midst of talks over how to spend it's budget there's a possibility that Galileo may be for the chop in an effort to cut costs.
Galileo is Europe's answer to the US Navstar GPS network and, as seems to be the usual case for massive EU projects, it is massively over budget and is years behind the original date scheduled for a full fleet of satellites. Currently only four test satellites have made it into orbit.
Whilst the operational justifications for Europe having its own GPS network are weak, especially in the current financial climate, Galileo does promise increased accuracy, better protection from jamming, and operational independence from Navstar. Many forget that Navstar is operated by the US Department of Defence and we use it at their pleasure.
But can all this justify the massive costs? It is estimated that more than 8 billion is still required to complete the deployment of Galileo. More than 4 billion has already been spent on a project whose total cost was estimated at 3.4 billion when first proposed.
Even if the EU can find the money to continue with Galileo,, they have a difficult decision to make. Should they cancel the programme and write off all the money spent to date including the loss of jobs, or should they struggle on?
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 Posted by M8TJT on Thu Feb 07, 2013 8:03 pm |
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Struggle on! Its only money and the taxpayer has a bottomless pit of that stuff 
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| Posted by 253 on Thu Feb 07, 2013 8:41 pm |
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I remember reading something about this in one of the papers at the end of last year. All a bit vague now, think they said they launched the last of the test satellites in October or November and that the system would be up and running in another 5 years.
As it is a EU project, no surprise it has overshot it's budget, probably falsified the accounts in the first place to get it approved. And when completed it won't be able to do half of what they said it would and won't last as long as supposed to.
Don't want to give the impression that I'm a euro septic. (not a typo) 
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| Posted by davemcwish on Sat Feb 09, 2013 6:56 pm |
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| Pocketgps Wrote: | Come on - 120 THOUSAND MILLION, think about it, and say it again.
How can they spend that  A f***ing disgrace.
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Where do you get 120 billion from?
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| Posted by AliOnHols on Sun Feb 10, 2013 9:19 am |
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| davemcwish Wrote: | | ....Where do you get 120 billion from? |
Possibly different counting systems, but too many 0's for me to be sure.
http://oxforddictionaries.com/words/how-many-is-a-billion
EDIT - 1) I've done some sums and the above suggestion doesn't hold. My bad.
2) 12Billion between ±740 Million Europeans (Wikipedia), about 16.25 each for a non-USA controlled GPS system.
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| Posted by jwbuchanan on Fri Feb 15, 2013 8:45 am |
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and with that Spanish team's enhancement of existing GPS to 2m accuracy, who needs Galileo?
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| Posted by jonrome on Fri Feb 15, 2013 9:13 am |
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I'm in two minds (as I often am) on this.
On the one hand it would be a shame to lose an independant system that would free us from relying on American good will & on the other hand I remember that under the last control obsessed government there were plans to use it to monitor all our vehicle journeys. And to charge us for the priviledge of course. The control freaks haven't all gone away with the change in governors.
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| Posted by MaFt on Fri Feb 15, 2013 10:15 am |
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| jwbuchanan Wrote: | | and with that Spanish team's enhancement of existing GPS to 2m accuracy, who needs Galileo? |
But if the American government decide to stop allowing us mere mortals to use their GPS system then what do we use? GLONASS, as far as I'm aware, only covers Russia and China's Beidou is both still in it's infancy and doesn't have worldwide coverage anyway.
This was the main reason for developing our own - so we were not relying on the good will of the american government.
MaFt
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What are you lot banging on about 
I make that 12 billions not 120 anythings regardless of the number system that you use 
