[grecy]

It's accurate to within a meter and works perfectly fine today, without us having to spend billions more on a replacement that could surely be spent on those pesky problems like healthcare or education.

Why wouldn't we keep using it for hundreds of years to come?

[dzhiurgis]

IDK because European ones already work down to the centimeter...

I've just sailed into 2-3 meter wide canal after dark here in NZ. Used my previous track from earlier today. 1 meter accuracy is not precise enough to do it safely - had to look for fairly poorly lit nav marks and rocks.

[jniedrauer]

I wouldn't trust GPS down to sub-meter precision even if the spec technically supported it. I often travel a route, then turn around and retrace the exact same route, only to see the GPX data indicate fairly large variances. LEO is very large and the atmosphere is not uniform.

[craftyguy]

Or you could use lights and your eyes.. Blindly trusting anything like GPS to guide you through risky situations like that sounds like a good way to ruin your boat.

[dzhiurgis]

I would still do, but you use GPS as a confirmation rather than source of truth.

[throw0101a]

> Or you could use lights and your eyes..

Assuming there's no thick fog.

Though radar, depending on its resolution (which is determined by array/beam width), is also handy.

[7952]

You have to replace the satellites periodically anyway so you are already spending lots of money.

[grecy]

Sure, so spend just enough to replace them with same, rather than extra billions to develop something new.

[whatshisface]

Why stop at a meter?

[jrockway]

The error beyond this level is due to local ionospheric conditions rather than the protocol. Corrections can be transmitted to interested receivers, WAAS is an example of such a system.

cm level accuracy is available with RTK. It works by comparing GPS signals from a known nearby location with that of a mobile receiver, providing what amounts to especially good correction. It works fine and you can get started at home for <$100.

A new protocol that does better than what we have right now will take some major breakthroughs.

[tecleandor]

Any recommendations on what hardware or project should I look for to "start at home"? Sounds interesting...

[modernerd]

http://rtkexplorer.com/how-to/posts-getting-started/

[ac29]

You can get cm level accuracy with RTK: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real-time_kinematic

[mehrdadn]

This looks amazing. Any idea if there are consumer level CPGPS devices?

[labster]

Kessler syndrome.

[froh]

I had to look it up... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome

The Kessler syndrome (also called the Kessler effect,[1][2] collisional cascading or ablation cascade), proposed by the NASA scientist Donald J. Kessler in 1978, is a scenario in which the density of objects in low Earth orbit (LEO) is high enough that collisions between objects could cause a cascade where each collision generates space debris that increases the likelihood of further collisions.

[jniedrauer]

> I had to look it up...

You're a disappointment as a nerd. As penance, go watch Planetes.

[labster]

He's one of today's lucky 10000. No insults please, Tanabe-san would be disappointed.