National Space Policy: NSDD-42 (issued on July 4th, 1982)

From Scott Kozel:
(Stuf4) wrote:

Notice that it wasn't the Army who got funded for GPS R&D. Notice
that is wasn't the FAA. Notice that it wasn't the USGS. Not the
Coast Guard. Not EMS 'R' US.

It was not a federal grant to Cadillac.

Just two players:

- The US Air Force,
- The US Navy.

All in all, the cost of putting up 24 GPS satellites over an 18-year
period, was a very modest cost to the federal government. The
government spent more money on Food Stamps in the same time period.

A *lot* more, I'm sure.

If GPS had such a high military justification as you assert, then they
wouldn't have taken 18 years to implement the system (even the first 10
"Block 1" satellites took 7-1/2 years to implement), they probably would
have done the whole 24 in 3 years or less.

Had this capability been considered necessary, then I would agree. A
key factor to remember here is that no one knew for sure whether GPS
would actually work (let alone work so well).

It was all a theory when that first NavSTAR was launched.

And think back to how much funding the military gave the Wright
Brothers for R&D prior to Kitty Hawk. How much to Goddard at Aunt
Effie's.

The military is slow to jump on such projects because they don't want
to waste money on technology that may not work.

Here is an excellent reference about the military aspects of
interstate highways:
http://www.globalsecurity.org/milita...ility/ndhs.htm

Its message fits in with your message, as I see it (save the
misconception part).

It uses the label "National Defense Highway System" several times, which
is incorrect, there never has been a USA highway system by that name,
and sources like that are among those who perpetuate military myths
about the Interstate highway system.

It is quite common for legislation to be known by a short title.
Often, the short title is specified within the legislation itself. So
where did this short name come from? Perhaps there were people who
noted that the term "Interstate and Defense Highways" were two
separate labels for one type of road (noting that interstate highways
are not separate from defense highways).

While we can agree that "National Defense Highway System" was not the
official title, I have no problem with its use as a short title.
(Notice also that the "One Mile in Five" reference you provided talks
of the "Eisenhower Interstate Highway System" as well as the "Defense
Highway Act of 1941".)

And I find your criticism of "military myths" particularly curious,
especially since you have stated that you have a wealth of background
on the matter. Here are quotes from a speech prepared by Eisenhower
himself:

...cited five "penalties" of the nation's obsolete highway
network:
the annual death and injury toll, the waste of billions of
dollars
in detours and traffic jams, the clogging of the nation's courts
with highway-related suits, the inefficiency in the
transportation
of goods, and "the appalling inadequacies to meet the demands of
catastrophe or defense, should an atomic war come."

In case anyone missed that last point, I'll repeat it:

"the nation's obsolete highway network [has] appalling inadequacies to
meet the demands of catastrophe or defense, should atomic war come."

Other quotes from the very same webpage:

...by July 1950, the United States was again at war, this time
in
Korea, and the focus of the highway program shifted from
civilian
to military needs.


Because of the significance of the interstate system to national
defense, Fallon changed the official name to the "National
System
of Interstate and Defense Highways." This new name remained in
all
future House versions and was adopted in 1956.


Where did I find these quotes? On the very webpage that you provided:

From the official DOT website for the Federal Highway Administration:
http://www.tfhrc.gov/pubrds/summer96/p96su10.htm


(I don't know whether you didn't bother reading the page you linked,
or whether you are choosing to ignore it.)

It was named the "National System of Interstate Highways" from 1943
until 1956 when the "and defense" was tacked on.

Quotes --

"From the outset of construction of the Interstate System, the DOD has
monitored its progress closely, ensuring direct military input to all
phases of construction".

SMK: DOD had relatively little input to the Interstate system, as the
Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and its predecessor Bureau of
Public Roads (BPR) was the federal agency that led the project.

"The National Defense Highway System was responsible for building many
of the first freeways".

SMK: Wrong. The state highway departments administered the design,
right-of-way acquisition and construction of every Interstate highway
route, the FHWA provided design approvals and 90% of the funding, and
the state highway departments owned the completed Interstate highways.

"Its purpose was supposedly to allow for mass evacuation of cities in
the event of a nuclear attack".

SMK: Baloney. Highway and traffic engineers back then greatly
discounted the ability of the freeways to provide timely mass evacuation
of cities, because their traffic engineering knowledge knew of the
impossibility of throwing 3 million or more vehicles onto a metropolitan
area's freeway system and expecting anything but total gridlock. Here's
a hint: one freeway lane has a maximum capacity of about 2,000 vehicles
per hour.

"The Interstate system was designed so that one mile in every five must
be straight, usable as airstrips in times of war or other emergencies".

SMK: That is a myth.

See: "One Mile in Five: Debunking the Myth", by Richard F. Weingroff,
FHWA historian
http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/infrastructure/rw00b.htm

"Was designed to move military equipment and personnel efficiently".

SMK: As a purely secondary function.

Here is a much better history of the Interstate highway system, by
Richard F. Weingroff, chief FHWA historian --

Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956: Creating the Interstate System
http://www.tfhrc.gov/pubrds/summer96/p96su10.htm

"The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1944 primarily maintained the status
quo. Its biggest departure was in Section 7, which authorized
designation of a 65,000-km "National System of Interstate Highways," to
be selected by joint action of the state highway departments:
... so located as to connect by routes, as direct as practicable, the
principal metropolitan areas, cities, and industrial centers, to serve
the national defense, and to connect at suitable border points with
routes of continental importance in the Dominion of Canada and the
Republic of Mexico".

Along with the "atomic war" justification as quoted above from this
very same page, an interesting side note that comes out is that
decades before Al Gore Jr pushed funding for the information
superhighway, Al Gore Sr had pushed funding for automobile interstate
highways.

Still, GPS did not provide any new unique capability, and all 3 legs of
the U.S. nuclear triad were quite accurate in their own right prior to
GPS.

?

I just stated that nuclear warhead delivery had unreliable accuracy.
You are agreeing with that point. And then state that they were quite
accurate.

I said "quite accurate in their own right", as before GPS, U.S. ICBMs
were accurate enough to hit point hardened targets, U.S. manned bombers
were accurate enough to hit point hardened targets, and U.S. SLBMs were
accurate enough to hit cities, ports and industrial centers (but not
point targets).

I don't disagree with that. But once again...

The percentage expected to hit accurately with GPS is greater than
without. This fact is encompassed by the term "force multiplier".

I agree that they *can be* quite accurate without GPS. But this takes
a high degree of skill, and even then, the best navigators were known
to unwittingly degrade their system accuracy (if not a hardware only
problem).

GPS is a no brainer. It pumps into the system many highly accurate
fixes that keep the inertial part of the system *tight*.

...and that *is* a unique capability. It greatly increased the
percentage of bombers that could be expected to reach their targets
accurately. Same for other types of warheads.

GPS is NOT "unique", conceptually it is a "better navigation system".

GPS revolutionized navigation.

Never has there been a system that could fix your position at any
point on the globe. GPS does this with exceptionaly precision.

It is incomparable to INS systems for the aspects previously
mentioned: INS is totally incapable of measuring position. It must
be told where it is, and only from there can it tell you where you
have gone (maybe).

GPS tells you where you are.

It also was vulnerable during the Cold War, as the satellites couldn't
be hidden, the Soviets knew exactly where they were, and their
hunter-killer satellites could have quickly destroyed enough so as to
heavily degrade or even neutralize the GPS system.

....or a more radical approach:

The Soviets could build their own sat-nav system!


~ CT