Sailors have navigated by the stars since the dawn of time. Now, fifty years after Neil Armstrong first set foot on the Moon in the Apollo 11 mission, we shouldn’t forget that even the Apollo astronauts relied on sextants to … Continue reading
Tag Archives: sextant
I first arrived in New York harbor forty years ago, as a freshly minted naval architect working for Moore McCormack. In those days, the Brooklyn docks were crowded with US flag shipping companies, many with their headquarters or sales offices in … Continue reading
In 1998, the United States Naval Academy dropped celestial navigation from its curriculum. If a naval officer wished to know where he or she was, the officer simply had to read the display on a GPS (Global Positioning System) receiver. … Continue reading