Javier Benedicto and Adolfo Plasencia
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780262036016
- eISBN:
- 9780262339308
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262036016.003.0009
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Technology and Society
The engineer, Javier Benedicto, head of the Galileo Programme Department at ESA, describes in this dialogue the frustration felt by scientists who work in space agencies. The long-term nature of ...
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The engineer, Javier Benedicto, head of the Galileo Programme Department at ESA, describes in this dialogue the frustration felt by scientists who work in space agencies. The long-term nature of their projects means that those who envision and design a space mission are forced to leave the future generation to implement the mission as well as processing the results. He explains that although it is hard to believe, uncertainty also hovers over the Galileo space programme meaning they also have to consider that the impos∫sible could actually occur. He relates how in Galileo they ‘manufacture’ their own notion of ‘universal time’ that will be used worldwide and explains how they are working with this time, which is accurate to a nanofraction of a second. He goes on to explain how they managed to persuade the Russians (Glasnoss), Chinese (Beidou) and North Americans (GPS) to agree to cooperate and, at the same time, make their systems compatible with Galileo’s future GPS system for civilian use.Less
The engineer, Javier Benedicto, head of the Galileo Programme Department at ESA, describes in this dialogue the frustration felt by scientists who work in space agencies. The long-term nature of their projects means that those who envision and design a space mission are forced to leave the future generation to implement the mission as well as processing the results. He explains that although it is hard to believe, uncertainty also hovers over the Galileo space programme meaning they also have to consider that the impos∫sible could actually occur. He relates how in Galileo they ‘manufacture’ their own notion of ‘universal time’ that will be used worldwide and explains how they are working with this time, which is accurate to a nanofraction of a second. He goes on to explain how they managed to persuade the Russians (Glasnoss), Chinese (Beidou) and North Americans (GPS) to agree to cooperate and, at the same time, make their systems compatible with Galileo’s future GPS system for civilian use.
