The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington D.C. is slated to open an exhibit March 2013 entitled, “Time and Navigation: The untold story of getting from here to there.”
The exhibit will explore how timekeeping has evolved throughout three centuries and how it influences navigation. Whether through the high seas, the air or even space, time plays an essential role.
“The possibilities of traveling in space inspired plans to navigate from space. Innovators tried different approaches to see whether radio transmissions from orbiting satellites could be used to determine positions on Earth,” according to the official Smithsonian website for the new exhibit. “They found that time from precise clocks on satellites, transmitted by radio signals, could in fact determine location. The military combined several systems into one and created the Global Positioning System.”
more…