Michael, Tom, Bill, John, Fernando et al Look, horsemanship is still with us, same is with sailing under sail, sundials are still being designed and built, Mike can gut a deer, even steam engines are maintained and used. So sextant will not perish. Its reign held well over 200 years. In 90-ties of our century it still had to be used in certain areas of the globe not covered by Loran or Deca. It is still being used on many yachts, So it is not that bad. Sextants are still being produced and sold and not only as decorations.
Sextant in its beginnings pushed into obscurity another marvelous device, that is astrolabe which was also amazing celestial computer, much more abstract than celestial globe. GPS does not have soul but its inventors feel warmly about it. The idea was incredible, theoretically simple but technologically very advanced and complex. As Mike noted satelites may be turned off or shot down and in such case come back of the sextant may be very fast. During WWII convoy navigators, whatever their civilian backgrounds, became superb sextant users. It was a must. Not only radio beacons were off but lighthouses as well, not to mention that convoy ships used light only for Morse code communication. Sextant does have a soul, as I mentioned it requires respect and devotion. The thrill when you see for the first time how fast the Sun moves in its view is incomparable. Certainly you touch the Universe, like with sundial. Slawek Slawek Grzechnik 32 57.4'N 117 08.8'W http://home.san.rr.com/slawek
