Cold War Conversations, a podcast series focused on the cold war era, recently interviewed Richard Easton about the early days of the U.S. space program and the origin of GPS. Listen to Episode 76 to hear Richard recall details of growing up with a father doing space projects at the Naval Research Laboratory and share details of his research into the military programs that led to GPS.
Tag Archives: Global Positioning System
Read Richard Easton’s guest blog at Lidar News
Richard Easton recently contributed a guest post for the Lidar News “In the Scan” blog. In his post, Richard reviews the history of GPS and highlights several common myths surrounding the technology, as well as widespread misinformation about its origin. Richard continues to pursue documentary evidence that will shed additional light on the early days of GPS.
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Richard Easton interviewed on TOCRadio Podcast
Richard kicked off the new year with an appearance on TOCRadio’s Podcast Episode 19. In a wide-ranging interview, hosts Wyatt Harper and Matt Schoenfeldt queried him about the historical development of GPS and the arrival of GPS III satellites, which are finally launching after years of delays. Richard debunked the common myth that President Ronald Reagan declassified GPS for its first civilian use, discussed how GPS impacted the Persian Gulf War, summarized ongoing challenges related to spoofing and jamming, and raised the policy issue posed by whether new military receivers should incorporate other GNSS signals.
TOCRadio is a military-themed podcast produced by LTC Matt Schoenfeldt and CPT Wyatt Harper.
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NSSI Space Pro Reading List
While not a review, per se, perhaps the most appreciated feedback we have received regarding GPS Declassified was being selected by the Air Force’s National Security Space Institute for its 2016 Space Professionals Reading List.
Each year, NSSI surveys faculty members and other space experts for nominees and selects half a dozen titles to recommend to its students and alumni. Other Air Force trainers sometimes share the lists, and they have some longevity, as we were recently reminded by a friend, who sent us the photo below.
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ION Newsletter Features Easton and Frazier
The Institute of Navigation Quarterly Newsletter, Vol. 27, No. 3 (Summer 2017), page 10, published a feature article, GPS Historians Spread a PNT Gospel, about several recent public talks Richard Easton and Eric Frazier have presented, including one that appeared on C-SPAN’s American History TV.
The authors continue to mine historical factors in the development of GPS that provide relevant signposts for the technology going forward.
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Easton and Frazier Speak at NY Military Affairs Symposium
On May 5, 2017, Richard Easton and Eric Frazier presented “GPS: American Invention, Global Impact” at the New York Military Affairs Symposium (NYMAS) on Lexington Avenue in Manhattan.
The talk focused on how GPS technology, which was conceived and developed in U.S. military laboratories to meet Cold War needs, has spawned a worldwide satellite navigation industry, with global revenues from devices themselves and added-value services enabled by them estimated by the European Global Navigation Satellite Systems Agency (GSA) to reach €270 billion to €300 billion by 2025.
C-SPAN was on hand to videotape the presentation for its “American History TV” series. The AH schedule shows the first air date as 2 p.m., June 3, 2017, on C-SPAN3. Afterward, it will be available to watch online.
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GPS: American Invention, Global Impact
The Global Positioning System, a technology invented in U.S. military laboratories, revolutionized war-fighting weapons, tactics and strategy. Contrary to common misconceptions, GPS development envisioned non-military uses from the start. Our deployment of GPS has driven other nations to invest large sums in competing worldwide systems and regional augmentation systems. GPS technology has permeated numerous commercial, scientific and civilian domains, delivering precise positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) for activities from transportation to banking to social media. Its global impact today is broader and deeper than most people realize, as GPS has become an unseen but critical component of modern infrastructure.
In this talk, Richard D. Easton and Eric F. Frazier, coauthors of GPS Declassified: From Smart Bombs to Smartphones, trace the development of GPS from its secret, Cold War roots to its emergence as a worldwide consumer industry and vital public utility.
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SpyCast Interviews Richard Easton
SPY Historian Vince Houghton sat down with Richard Easton, co-author of GPS Declassified: From Smart Bombs to Smartphones, to discuss the development of GPS and its role in the military, intelligence, and civilian domains. Easton’s father, Roger, led the Space Applications Branch of the Naval Research Laboratory from the Vanguard Satellite era to the early days of GPS development. Listen to the entire podcast.
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Easton and Frazier Speak at Peterson AFB
Richard Easton and Eric Frazier were recently invited by the National Security Space Institute (NSSI), located at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs, Colo., to speak to students and faculty.
The two-day visit included a 90-minute presentation, July 21, as part of the Space Professionals Speaker Series, hosted by Gen. John E. Hyten, Commander, Air Force Space Command.
The authors got a behind-the-scenes tour of the GPS ground control facility at nearby Schriever AFB and met more than a dozen of the over 100 members of the 2nd Space Operations Squadron, who keep the GPS constellation running smoothly 24/7.
Easton and Frazier presented their talk, “GPS: Military Asset, Public Utility,” five times in all, including to the space professionals community, to three classes of NSSI students from the United States and allies, and to a faculty gathering.
For two individuals who have devoted countless hours to researching the historical development of GPS, as well as its economic and sociological implications, Easton and Frazier consider it a rare treat to have the opportunity to meet the experts who manage GPS and see firsthand the facilities they operate.
View the entire talk at YouTube:
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Time Synchronization and the Origins of GPS
Richard Easton will present a talk, “Time Synchronization and the Origins of GPS,” at the forthcoming conference, The Science of Time, June 5-9, 2016, hosted by the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge.
Richard is scheduled to speak Wednesday, June 8, at 10:45. His talk will focus on how the need to synchronize clocks at widely separated satellite tracking stations sparked the idea of placing highly accurate clocks, and eventually atomic frequency standards, aboard satellites. This led directly to the Global Positioning System, which enabled worldwide time synchronization.
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