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ICBMs have used celestial guidance since the 50s. https://airandspace.si.edu/collection-objects/snark-guidance-system/nasm_A19700234000 https://airandspace.si.e
by mat_epice 3y ago
ICBMs have used celestial guidance since the 50s. https://airandspace.si.edu/collection-objects/snark-guidance-system/nasm_A19700234000 https://airandspace.si.edu/collection-objects/snark-guidance...
- dboreham 3y agoAlso B-58
- PaulHoule 3y agoA college friend of mine who was at the Air Force Academy in the 1980s told me she was trained in celestial navigation in case they needed it in a pinch. Both of us were pretty interested in the math.
- mrguyorama 3y agoOlder 737s have "Eyebrow" windows and mounting points for sextants for backup navigation.
- vdfs 3y agocelestial navigation is 4000 years old
- jojobas 3y agoAutomatic, no-human-in-the-loop, is a bit different dontchathink?
- hutzlibu 3y agoI think it is waaaay older. The north star and the southern cross probably guided humans since they had some sort of consciousness. If you see the night sky every night (without distracting screens), the shapes became kind of familiar.
- robocat 3y agoNitpick: The North Star (Polaris) wasn't used over 4000 years ago: So now you can see why Polaris will not always be aligned with the north spin axis of the Earth - because that axis is slowly changing the direction in which it points (precession)! Right now, the Earth's rotation axis happens to be pointing almost exactly at Polaris. But in the year 3000 B.C., the North Star was a star called Thuban (also known as Alpha Draconis), and in about 13,000 years from now the precession of the rotation axis will mean that the bright star Vega will be the North Star.
- hutzlibu 3y agoWell, good point, but every moment in history had its fixed south and north stars, you could find easily, if you were familiar with the sky. Which everyone was back then. As well as some animals, who also use the stars for navigation.
- ComputerGuru 3y agoThere’s no good reason to assume that in the absence of an extremely bright star that happens to be north-aligned that a culture navigated the stars with a north-anchored reference ;)
- hutzlibu 3y agoThe reason would be, that you can see that the sky is rotating around a certain point in the north, or south depending where you are. All the stars are changing - but this point is not. So even when there is no bright star at that spot - there will be star constellations around pointing towards it. A fixed point or area of reference ( and with no artificial lights, there definitely would be some star to see). But of course if you really know the dark sky well, there are a lot more points of references, you will remember what constellations will be where at what time of the night at what season. Or where the moon is, etc.
- h4ch1 3y agoand how many people do you know that can effectively navigate using it?
- imwillofficial 3y agoHow is that relevant?
- jjoonathan 3y agoNo GPS in the apocalypse. Ring Laser Gyroscopes are another nifty nav tool in this space: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_laser_gyroscope#/media/File:Ring_laser_gyroscope_at_MAKS-2011_airshow.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_laser_gyroscope#/media/Fi...
- sadhorse 3y agoLasers? That is so boring. Consider the floating sphere. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Inertial_Reference_Sphere https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Inertial_Reference_...
- Sharlin 3y agoNo GPS in the 50s either.
- havercosine 3y agoThe most badass story related to 'using basic tools and a steady hand in a pinch' is Buzz Aldrin pulling out a sextant and sliderule to do some calculations in Gemini XII. The description in the article reads "Aldrin pulled out a sextant and his slide rule and put his MIT doctoral research to work." More details on the link here: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/gemini-xii-crew-masters-the-challenges-of-spacewalks https://www.nasa.gov/feature/gemini-xii-crew-masters-the-cha...
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]