Journal Cyberdyne's Journal: EU racing against US, USSR to build GPS 2
Having launched one of the thirty satellites required, the eight-member commercial consortium tasked with building Galileo, the EU's planned rival to the American NAVSTAR (better known as GPS) and Soviet GLONASS systems, has apparently declined to invest further money in the project. Future funding will consist entirely of another $4bn and change from EU taxpayers, since the consortium is no longer confident of getting a return on their own investment. (Somehow, it sounds almost as if they doubt the commercial prospects of being the third to launch a service which has already been available to everyone free of charge for over a decade...)
Despite this setback, with a further influx of EU funding, the European Commission hopes to have the constellation online by 2011; the American and Russian counterparts were completed in 1995 and 1994 respectively.
Just imagine how far behind the Soviet Union the EU would be without the influx of billions in extra funding to speed things up...
So what is the French version of Homer Simpson (Score:2)
Only because a man with one watch knows what time it is, but a man with two is never sure....
Or something like that. ;-)
We all know... (Score:2)
(Although, CERN is an exception - but it is not a purely European endeavour)
I'll believe it when I see it.