US navy returns to celestial navigation amid fears of computer hack

[WestVirginiaRebel]

UK Telegraph:

It was how Odysseus sailed the seas, how Columbus reached the Americas, and how Lawrence of Arabia found his way across the vast, featureless deserts of the Middle East.

 

For millennia, travellers used the stars to guide them on their journeys – a technique which, in recent decades, has been replaced by modern technology.

 

But now the US navy is reinstating classes on celestial navigation for all new recruits, teaching the use of sextants – instruments made of mirrors used to calculate angles and plot directions – because of rising concerns that computers used to chart courses could be hacked or malfunction.

 

“We went away from celestial navigation because computers are great,” said Lt. Cmdr. Ryan Rogers, the deputy chairman of the naval academy's Department of Seamanship and Navigation. "The problem is there's no backup."

 

The era of celestial navigation ended with the launch of satellites in the 1990s, which evolved into the Global Positioning System (GPS). While celestial navigation can calculate your position within 1.5 miles, by 1995 GPS could pinpoint your location within feet, and the system has never been shut down.

 

Today, 31 satellites circle the Earth, each twice a day, costing American taxpayers about $1 billion (£6.5 million) a year.

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Ready sextants?