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With Host Professor Joseph Schofer of Northwestern University.

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Earth-orbiting Satellite
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The Global Positioning Satellite System – Fifty Years of Success

Posted June 1, 2024, Length: 23:30

GPS, the Global Positioning System, is now half a century old. This extraordinary technological advance routinely guides planes, ships, trains, automobiles, bikers and pedestrians with high precision. A Defense Department technology, GPS became widely available to the public in 1990. It has displaced and replaced some older navigation systems and brought revolutionary change to location and timing tasks.

To review some of the benefits GPS has brought, we talk with Michael Gallaher, of RTI International, who is co-author of a study of the benefits of GPS for the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

Listen to this episode now

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Descriptions of photos at top of page, from left to right:
Bayonne Bridge, from Bayonne, NJ to Staten Island, NY; the Tom Moreland Interchange in Atlanta, GA; Dworshak Dam, in Clearwater County, ID; a transmission substation in Orem, UT.
All photos courtesy of Wikipedia.