May 19
Picture a crumbling bridge
Once something is commercially useful, can you rely on government to keep it in good shape? The example of our GPS satellite system should scare those welcoming our new government healthcare overlords.
As early as 2010 the GPS system will start intermittently failing and delivering bad results. Why? Because the Air Force, charged with its care since the 90’s, has not fielded replacement satellites. And the ones they have planned are way behind schedule and over budget.
The Air Force, which recently had the US Cyber Command yanked from them for incompetence, seems to be declining. Not sure why. And since it is a major part of our force projection, I hope they can pull out of their competence dive.
May 19th, 2009 at 12:04 pm
Sounds like user-fees would solve the finance problem. Tax the sale of GPS exploiting devices. Or do the low-government, low-tax advocates rationalize that such useful service should be “free”?
May 19th, 2009 at 12:07 pm
Oh boy, a new tax. That would do it. Do you really believe that?
A commercial system funded by device sales would work. No government need to be involved.
However, since the military needs this, the Air Force should do a better job running it. The Army and Marines seem to be getting better all the time. The Navy, status quo. The Air Force… in decline.