History Of Navigation Research Articles

Space guidance evolution - A personal narrative

Introduction T prospect of preparing a comprehensive history of space guidance and navigation was, initially, a delight to contemplate. But, as the unproductive weeks went by, the original euphoria was gradually replaced by a sense of pragmatism. I reasoned that the historical papers which had the greatest appeal were written by old timers telling of their personal experiences. Since I had lived through the entire space age, and had the good fortune of being involved in many of the nation's important aerospace programs, I decided to narrow the scope to encompass only that of which I had personal knowledge. (It is, however, a sobering thought that you might qualify as an ' 'old timer.) The story begins in the early 1950's when the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory (later to become the Charles Stark Draper Laboratory, Inc.) was chosen by the Air Force Western Development Division to provide a self-contained guidance system backup to Convair in San Diego for the new Atlas intercontinental ballistic missile. The work was contracted through the Ramo-Wooldridge Corporation, and the technical monitor for the MIT task was a young engineer named Jim Fletcher who later served as the NASA Administrator. The Atlas guidance system was to be a combination of an on-board autonomous system, and a ground-based tracking and command system. This was the beginning of a philosophic controversy, which, in some areas, remains unresolved. The self-contained system finally prevailed in ballistic missile applications for obvious reasons. In space exploration, a mixture of the two remains. The electronic digital computer industry was in its infancy then, so that an on-board guidance system could be mechanized only with analog components. Likewise, the design and analysis tools were highly primitive by today's standards. It is difficult to appreciate the development problems without considering the available computational aids.

Inertial Navigation

The following letter to Nature, dated 24 April 1873, might make an appropriate sequel to ‘The history of inertial navigation’ by W. Wrigley in the January issue of the Journal. As well as containing some interesting speculation about animal navigation, which we seem no nearer resolving a century later, the letter includes an introduction to the idea of inertial navigation that it would be difficult to improve upon even today.

From Two-Star Instruments to Modern Star Trackers

For a long while now positions on the surface of the Earth have been fixed by observing the altitudes of two heavenly bodies. The equations:include on their left-hand side two observed zenith distances and on their right-hand sides the required values of latitude and longitude. The history of celestial navigation records many different solutions to the problem, one of them being the observation of equal altitudes of the same body east and west of the meridian, usually the Sun, or of two different stars. If only the local time is required it is not even necessary to measure the exact altitude.

Early Portuguese Navigation

Professor Cortesão sent the following message to the Annual General Meeting of the Institute on 23 October which he had been unable to attend to receive personally his Honorary Membership. An account of the meeting appears at page 111.The Honorary Membership which the Royal Institute of Navigation bestows upon me, when I have reached the eighty-fourth year of my laborious life, the last forty years of which have been largely dedicated to the study of the history of early cartography and navigation, impresses me deeply and I am very sorry that, due only to my advanced age, I cannot be present at this ceremony to thank you personally for such a great distinction.

IV.—The Influence of Technology on Navigation as an Occupation

This paper falls roughly into three sections: the inter-relationship between economic forces, technological change and occupations, a brief history of navigation in occupational terms, and the present and future state of the occupation. The conclusions drawn may be open to discussion, since it presents a point of view and not a specific piece of research. It is restricted to the occupation of navigation in the Merchant Navy; naval and aircraft navigation appear to be very different as occupations.

Most Probable Position: A History of Aerial Navigation to 1941

Most Probable Position: A History of Aerial Navigation to 1941

Ciguatera and the Voyage of Captain Bligh

AFTER the mutiny aboard the H.M.S.<i>Bounty</i>on April 28, 1789, Captain Bligh and a group of 18 men were set adrift in a 23-foot open boat. They completed one of the most difficult and famous voyages of navigational history, with the exceptional record of no loss of life except for one death from native violence and some additional deaths from tropical disease on an island at which they stopped. During the course of this voyage, Captain Bligh, in spite of extreme emaciation, remained in surprisingly good health. There was, however, a single episode of unexplained illness, which may have been poisoning. At four o'clock on Monday, June 8, 1789, after more than 1 1/2 months at sea, and after having sailed more than 3,000 miles (5,559.6 km), their first fish was caught at approximately latitude 9° 09′ south, longitude 131° 31′ east, a point near the north coast of

Most Probable Position: A History of Aerial Navigation to 1941

Most Probable Position: A History of Aerial Navigation to 1941

Most Probable Position: A History of Aerial Navigation to 1941

Most Probable Position: A History of Aerial Navigation to 1941

Precision Clocks as a Basis for a Navigation System

The technological history of navigation and that of time measurement have proceeded side-by-side for centuries and have interacted one upon the other. Improvements in navigation sensors have stimulated corresponding improvements in chronology and, more recently, improvements in the technology of time measurement and frequency control have in turn stimulated developments in navigation techniques.Prior to the seventeenth century the available methods of time measurement were very crude but, in terms of accuracy, were consistent with the performance of the very imprecise sensors that were available for dead reckoning. The sand-glass provided a reasonable match, in terms of accuracy, to the Dutchman's log.

Reviews of Recent Books

NAVIGATIONVolume 20, Issue 4 p. 372-373 Reviews of Recent Books First published: Winter 1973 https://doi.org/10.1002/j.2161-4296.1973.tb01190.xAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat Abstract History of Navigation: MAN, THE NAVIGATOR, by E. W. Anderson History of Flight: MR. PIPER AND HIS CUBS, by Devon Francis Marine Navigation: PRACTICAL NAVIGATION, by W. S. Kals Marine Navigation: PRACTICAL NAVIGATION FOR THE YACHTSMAN, by Frederick L. Devereux, Jr. Volume20, Issue4Winter 1973Pages 372-373 RelatedInformation

The Story of Navigation - The Haven-Finding Art, A History of Navigation from Odysseus to Captain Cook. E. G. R. Taylor, 2nd edition with an Appendix by Joseph Needham, F.R.S., 310 pp., 8½ × 5½ in., Hollis and Carter Ltd., London, 1971, £2·50.

The Story of Navigation - The Haven-Finding Art, A History of Navigation from Odysseus to Captain Cook. E. G. R. Taylor, 2nd edition with an Appendix by Joseph Needham, F.R.S., 310 pp., 8½ × 5½ in., Hollis and Carter Ltd., London, 1971, £2·50. - Volume 25 Issue 1

Captain Cook as a navigator

The late Professor E. G. R. Taylor, perhaps the greatest authority on the history of navigation, summarized Captain Cook’s contribution in the following words: ‘Captain James Cook is deservedly esteemed as a great seaman, and he must be acclaimed also in the more particular role of a great navigator. For although he made no specific contribution to the art of navigation as such, he advanced it by sheer force of character. It was, indeed, a task for the mathematicians and astronomers, not for the sailors, to lay down new principles and new observations or calculations by which a ship’s position could be found and her course directed when at sea. And it was for the mathematical and optical instrument-makers to design and perfect the instruments by which such observations could be made. But, in the last resort, everything depended on the ships’ captains, the masters and the pilots. They alone could decide whether some novel principle should be mastered, some new instrument actually used’ (1). Writing of the average sailor she said: Fie was hostile to change, he preferred some old rule of thumb. And this is to be expected from all such men as learn the actual practice of their trade or craft by working beside an experienced master who in turn is passing on the traditions of an earlier generation.

Reviews of Recent Books

NAVIGATIONVolume 15, Issue 4 p. 439-439 Reviews of Recent Books First published: Winter 1968 https://doi.org/10.1002/j.2161-4296.1968.tb02244.xAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Abstract A History of Navigation: A HISTORY OF NAUTICAL ASTRONOMY, by Charles H. Cotter A Book on Transportation: CHARLES MORGAN AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF SOUTHERN TRANSPORTATION, by James P. Baughman A Book on Early Hydrography: FESTSCHRIFT ZUM 100. JAHRESTAG DER GRÜNDUNG DER NORDDEÜTSCHEN SEEWARTE, LANG “SEEKARTEN DER SÜDLICHEN NORD-UND SEE” 1968 A Reference Book: PORTS OF THE WORLD 1968, John de Graff Volume15, Issue4Winter 1968Pages 439-439 RelatedInformation

The Vinland Map

The discovery of the Vinland Map and the recent publication of its description* has been attended with considerable publicity on both sides of the Atlantic, in publications ranging from learned journals to glossies. Briefly, the map, provisionally dated about 1450, was discovered by an antiquarian bookseller of New Haven, Connecticut, in circumstances which so far have precluded a proper examination of its history. It has, as a recent reviewer put it, ‘no ancestors, no close relations and no descendants’. Its importance to the student of the history of navigation and discovery, however, is that (assuming it is authentic) it is by far the earliest surviving example of a map portraying any part of the Americas, and it ostensibly provides the first evidence for an early school of Norse cartography, for Vinland can clearly be identified with that part of the American continent settled by the Norsemen in the latter part of the tenth century.

The Earliest Original English Seaman's Rutter and Pilot's Chart

This article reports the discovery of two documents of considerable interest in the early history of navigation in England. When Henry VIII was planning to send ships of the royal fleet to Harderwijk in Guelderland in 1539, no pilot's book or chart of this part of the coast of northern Europe could be found in England. Therefore two experienced shipmasters, John Aborough of Devon and Richard Couche of Dover, were sent in haste to the Low Countries to make a survey of the coast and chart the route the king's ships would have to follow. Working with speed and secrecy, they compiled and brought back to the king a rutter giving sailing directions for Zeegat van Texel and the Zuider Zee and also a rough chart showing in detail the channels through the Haaks Banks, the entry to Marsdiep and the channel from thence to Enkhuizen. These two documents are the earliest original examples of such navigational directions drawn up by Englishmen which have so far been discovered. Both are reproduced in full and discussed in detail in this study.Among the Marquess of Salisbury's family archives at Hatfield House is a document of great interest in the early history of navigation in England. It is a seaman's rutter giving directions for the navigation of Zeegat van Texel and the Zuider Zee which was compiled by two English shipmasters in 1539 on direct orders from King Henry VIII. A narrow roll of manuscript fashioned by roughly sewing four strips of parchment end to end, being not quite 6 in. wide and nearly 3½. long when fully opened out, this appears to be the earliest original English rutter which can be found today. It is true that the well-known set of fifteenth-century ‘Sailing Directions’ published by the Hakluyt Society in 1889 were compiled at an earlier date. But these have only survived in a copy transcribed by a professional scribe, William Ebesham, among a number of treatises on heraldry, chivalry and similar matters contained in a volume called the Great Book, part of the library of a country gentleman of East Anglia, Sir John Paston. The parchment roll at Hatfield would appear, therefore, to be the earliest example of an original English rutter which has yet been discovered.

Arab Navigation in the Red Sea

The arabs have certainly sailed in the Red Sea for centuries, we possess many scatte ed refer n s to the n vigat on of this going back to the time of the Egyptian expeditions to Punt Solomon's expedition to Ophir. Of course, in Islamic times we have more numerous references, beginning with those about the early Muslim fugitives who took refuge in Abyssinia. The well known travellers, Ibn Jubair Ibn Battuta both crossed the sea between Jidda Aidhab. As soon as there were Muslims in Africa Somaliland, the Red Sea became important as a pilgrim route. Even Indians Far Eastern Muslims would prefer this route to the hazardous trek across the Arabian Peninsula. However, it is not until the end of the fifteenth century a.d. that we obtain a detailed view of the navigation of the Red Sea, this appears in the manuscripts of the surviving works of the pilot Ibn Majid, the man who reputed to have guided Vasco da Gama across the Indian Ocean. He, in mentioning the Red Sea as a route, specifically gives two reasons for its importance. The first as a pil? grim route the second as a trade route bringing supplies to the Hijaz from the Yemen Abyssinia. At what stage Arab pilots began to write down directions for navigation we cannot teil. Detailed routes by sea to China given by Ibn Khurdadhbih, the Akhbar al-Stn Mas'udi may have been taken from written pilot guides, although they may have been recorded from verbal accounts of sailors. Ibn Majid himself gives in his Fawd'id a brief literary history of Arab navigation, or rather a survey of sources known probably used by him. This account mentions many early navigators, going back into the eleventh century a.d. a few of them are stated as having written books. How? ever, Ibn Majid all these predecessors of his were mainly Indian Ocean sailors. They all seem to belong to one school of navigation connected with the southern end of the Persian Gulf it is possible that there were many other schools whose works have been completely lost. This school, 'Umani or Zufari in origin, to which Ibn Majid belonged, interested in all the seas navigated by the Arabs but not in the same detail. Surprisingly, there is practically nothing about the Persian Gulf very little about the Red Sea. Ibn Majid does give a very detailed account of this sea in one of his texts (the FawaHd) but few of the other texts deal with it and, even in the Fawd'id, Ibn Majid omits it until the end when he adds a special chapter on it, more or less as an appendix to his work. At the beginning of this chapter Ibn Majid gives a brief history of navigation in the Red Sea going back about a hundred years he mentions several pilots by name one or two works which have dealt with this subject before his time. Among the Red Sea pilots are 'Uthman al-Jazani from Jizan, the Captain (Rubban) Ka'in b. Hasan alMaha'imi (from a Yemeni tribe), Muh. b. Mara al-Iskandrani, Mahmtid alTha'alibi, who probably from al-Lith, for Tha'alib a tribe on the sea coast between Jidda al-Lith which owned, or had fishing rights in, the islands as far south as Zahrat al-Qasr. But these were contemporaries from whom Ibn Majid ob? tained information there is no sign that they wrote anything. He also mentions obtaining information from the people of the island of Jebel Sabaya, who must have been a fishing community acquainted with the neighbouring coastal bank. Apart from these, Ibn Majid takes his information from works of his father grandfather who sailed in the Red Sea before him. His grandfather (presumably Muhammad b. 'Amr al-Sa'dl) was experienced well-versed in this sea, to quote Ibn Majid, and had no equal. But that is all we hear of him; no works are actually named. His father, Majid b. Muh. al-Sa'dl even more experienced. His exploits are quoted in several places in Ibn Majid's section on the sea in the Fawd'id several times the accuracy

Prince Henry the Navigator

NAVIGATIONVolume 7, Issue 2-3 p. 117-126 Prince Henry the Navigator NORMAN J. W. THROWER, NORMAN J. W. THROWER Dr. Thrower is a member of the Department of Geography at the University of California at Los Angeles. A previous paper of his on the subject of navigational history, “The Discovery of the Longitude,” appeared in the Winter 1957–58 issue of Navigation (Vol. 5. No. 8).Search for more papers by this author NORMAN J. W. THROWER, NORMAN J. W. THROWER Dr. Thrower is a member of the Department of Geography at the University of California at Los Angeles. A previous paper of his on the subject of navigational history, “The Discovery of the Longitude,” appeared in the Winter 1957–58 issue of Navigation (Vol. 5. No. 8).Search for more papers by this author First published: Summer‐Autumn 1960 https://doi.org/10.1002/j.2161-4296.1960.tb02447.xCitations: 2 AboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat Citing Literature Volume7, Issue2-3Summer‐Autumn 1960Pages 117-126 RelatedInformation

Polynesian Navigational Stones

In this paper, a group of eight directional stones on the coral island of Arorae in the Gilbert Islands are described. The stones seem to have been used to direct canoe voyages to distant islands with the help of horizon stars en route, the stars' movements and bearings being studied and memorized in relation to the correct stone on the night before departure. They perhaps mark the site of a Polynesian navigation school which existed somewhere between A.D. 1000 and 1500. The directions given by the stones appear to have been corrected for drift due to the Equatorial Current. So far as is known these stones are unique, and have not previously been reported in print.On the island of Arorae in the Gilbert Islands there is a group of eight or nine stones which are said by the natives to have been used by early canoe voyagers to set their courses on departure to distant islands. No other such stones for navigation have been reported from the Pacific, which makes the coral stones of Arorae of unique value in the history of navigation. The stones are some of the few pieces of real evidence in the long-standing controversy on the nature and range of Polynesian navigation. The stones are called ‘Atibu-ni-Borau’ by the natives, which means ‘stones for voyages’. They have no legends or traditions which shed any light on the origin or actual use of the stones, but there are several clues available from elsewhere in the Pacific which enable the use of the stones to be determined with a high degree of probability.

The Haven-Finding Art. A History of Navigation from Odysseus to Captain Cook. E. G. R. Taylor

<i>The Haven-Finding Art. A History of Navigation from Odysseus to Captain Cook</i>. E. G. R. Taylor