Leap of faith

GPS World, March, 2008 by Alan Cameron

In the lofty Court Church of All Saints within the Bavarian Royal Family's Residential Palace, where once church prelates sermonized to the Kings Ludwig, Mad and not mad, tonight the high priesthood of the Galileo program lashed on the believers attending the Munich Satellite Navigation Summit with the amen verse of "Galileo is back on track," admonishing them to keep the faith and to put that faith into good works.

These good works amount to building the applications and the user equipment well in advance, while the priesthood--the European Space Agency, the GNSS Supervisory Authority, a newly proposed GNSS Oversight Committee, the European Council, the European Parliament, and the big aerospace contractors--goes about assembling the infrastructure.

"European investment seems assured, but worldwide investment is also needed to make Galileo a success," stressed Paul Verhoef of the European Commission. Carrying the crusade into foreign lands, this most pointedly means that the worldwide GNSS industry, predominantly GPS by denomination at present, should design and build receivers integrating Galileo with GPS now, so they'll be in users' hands by the time the program hits initial operating capability. This is a bet, also known as an investment, in the future that at least one manufacturer featured in this issue is willing to make. But a bet just the same.

My daddy taught me always to bet on a sure thing, not on the come. Contrarily, he also told me of Pascal's Bet, an application of decision theory to spiritual matters by a 17th-century French philosopher. Pascal wrote (loosely) that you get better odds by believing that God exists than by not believing, because the expected value of believing (going to heaven after death) is always greater than the expected value of not believing (going nowhere after death). In other words, you can't lose--or, you can't lose any worse with once choice than with the other, while you can do considerably better.

That theology works great if there's no real cost in believing. GNSS manufacturers don't quite have that luxury, as they must factor in research and development and chip foundry costs to support any such belief. Still, a reward's a reward.

What to do? In the words of the prophets Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart, as espoused by their disciples, God forgive me, the Monkees: "Then I saw her face--now I'm a believer." It would help if we could see Galileo's face, in the form of four successful IOV satellites. Sometime before the next decade begins.

Pedro Pedreira of the GNSS Supervisory Authority offered something short of that: "EGNOS will be the best demonstration of the true value of Galileo." Sort of a John the Baptist preaching in the wilderness--it should keep us believing until the real thing comes along.

Maybe. Etelka Barsi-Pataky, member of the European Parliament and rapporteur for Galileo, who struck me as a bit of a skeptic, actually, stated emphatically that "We need to start the program now, with strong control." Only that will get Galileo born again.

Letters to the Editor invited. E-mail to eic@gpsworld.com.