Weather Permitting - GPS Declassified: From Smart Bombs to Smartphones - page 25

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Weather Permitting
a Brief History of Navigation

Sleep did not fall upon his eyelids as he watched the
constellations—the Pleiades, the late-setting Bootes, and the
Great Bear, which men call the Wain, always turning in one
place, keeping watch over Orion—the only star that never takes a
bath in Ocean.

Homer, The Odyssey , chapter 5

The word navigation comes from navis , the Latin word for ship, and agare , the
Latin word that means to move forward. 1 Accurately knowing your position at
sea can make the difference between life and death. A prime historical exam-
ple involves Sir Ernest Shackleton (1874-1922), who led several expeditions to
Antarctica. As World War I broke out in August 1914, he sailed from Britain on
the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition. Its objective was to make the first
traverse of Antarctica. His ship, the Endurance , became trapped in pack ice in
the Weddell Sea, well south of the Antarctic Circle, and ultimately sank in
October 1915. After months on the ice floe, he traveled with his twenty-eight
men in three lifeboats to the inhospitable Elephant Island. From there, Shack-