I consider GPS, along with the Internet, the Defense Department's two greatest gifts to the planet, and I continue to be amazed at the uses folks way outside Defense find for it. That includes a project by the Wildlife Conservation Society to map South America's Patagonian Sea.
The wildlife group, working in cooperation with the conversation group Birdlife International, fitted seals, penguins and albatrosses with GPS collars, which took location readings as they roamed the Patagonian Sea, which runs from Brazil to the tip of South America.
The GPS-packing critters uplinked more than 280,000 data points during a 10-year period, all of which were used to create The Atlas of the Patagonian Sea: Species and Spaces, which was published last week.
Dr. Claudio Campagna, who runs the Wildlife Conservation Society's Sea and Sky project, said the atlas was essentially written by the animals that live in the sea and will be used to develop conservation policies that will ensure their survival.
I just love doing heartwarming GPS stories.
COMMENTS
Many may not be aware that the original command and control software designed and developed for GPS was done by the old IBM Federal Systems Division in Gaithersburg, MD. The original contract (C.1980) was Firm Fixed Price. At the time there was signficant skepticism in the scientific community as to whether or not GPS could ever work. Based essentially on the relationship between time and distance it was felt that the constellation of satellites could not be time synchronized and that they could not accurately model the interference in the signals caused by variations in the atmosphere. However, IBM engineers developed sophisticated algorithms for the ground software and the onboard nuclear cesium clocks worked as planned. The first GPS 'recievers' for the military cost about $20,000 per unit. The rest is history!
GM 11/23/09 09:09 am ET