Half a century ago, on December 22, 1973, Deputy Secretary of Defense William P. Clements, on the recommendation of the Defense Systems Acquisition and Review Council, directed the entire Department of Defense — through the Navstar GPS Joint Program Office, under the spectacular leadership of Col. Bradford Parkinson — to proceed with the GPS program.

While this magazine mostly focuses on the present and the future, we occasionally pause to remember how it all began.

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