Chapter 4
Navigations from Ground to Space
In human history, the fifteenth century A.D. is a significant watershed that human
activities began to move from the mainland to the ocean. Driven by the maritime
exploration and trade, people living on the originally isolated continents are increasingly frequent to and from each other. In the early twentieth century, humanity entered
the age of air flight. In the late 1950s, humanity entered the age of space flight. Under
such a context of times, the problem of guiding movable objects how to move safely
and economically was increasingly prominent, which is on the navigations of the
movable objects. The so-called movable objects refer to the moving man-made
objects such as vehicles, ships, aircrafts, missiles and spacecrafts, as well as the
activities that extend from human beings to other organisms. The so-called navigation refers to the process of monitoring and controlling the movable object from
starting position to the destination in timely, safe and efficient ways according to the
scheduled plans and regulations. With the development of science and technology,
the navigation has gradually become a subject that specially studies the theories,
methods and technical devices for the voyage, resulting in various means of navigation technologies and implementation approaches which are widely applied to all
kinds of the movable objects from ground to space, including land navigation, marine
navigation, aeronautic navigation and space navigation.
4.1 Connotations Related to Navigation
Although there are two professional terms in Chinese, “导航” and “航行”, originating from the same English word “navigation”, the two terms have very different
connotations and denotations in Chinese. For the Chinese character “航”, its original
meaning come from the driving of “boat” on the water surface. With the promotion of
modern disyllabic words, the character “航” is evolved into the term “导航”, which
is widely used in the displacement of the movable objects on sea, in air or in space
relative to a certain site or the Earth, and even in the orbital motion of the spacecraft
© National Defense Industry Press and Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021
P. Shuai, Understanding Pulsars and Space Navigations, Navigation: Science
and Technology 11, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-1067-7_4
199
Navigations from Ground to Space
In human history, the fifteenth century A.D. is a significant watershed that human
activities began to move from the mainland to the ocean. Driven by the maritime
exploration and trade, people living on the originally isolated continents are increasingly frequent to and from each other. In the early twentieth century, humanity entered
the age of air flight. In the late 1950s, humanity entered the age of space flight. Under
such a context of times, the problem of guiding movable objects how to move safely
and economically was increasingly prominent, which is on the navigations of the
movable objects. The so-called movable objects refer to the moving man-made
objects such as vehicles, ships, aircrafts, missiles and spacecrafts, as well as the
activities that extend from human beings to other organisms. The so-called navigation refers to the process of monitoring and controlling the movable object from
starting position to the destination in timely, safe and efficient ways according to the
scheduled plans and regulations. With the development of science and technology,
the navigation has gradually become a subject that specially studies the theories,
methods and technical devices for the voyage, resulting in various means of navigation technologies and implementation approaches which are widely applied to all
kinds of the movable objects from ground to space, including land navigation, marine
navigation, aeronautic navigation and space navigation.
4.1 Connotations Related to Navigation
Although there are two professional terms in Chinese, “导航” and “航行”, originating from the same English word “navigation”, the two terms have very different
connotations and denotations in Chinese. For the Chinese character “航”, its original
meaning come from the driving of “boat” on the water surface. With the promotion of
modern disyllabic words, the character “航” is evolved into the term “导航”, which
is widely used in the displacement of the movable objects on sea, in air or in space
relative to a certain site or the Earth, and even in the orbital motion of the spacecraft
© National Defense Industry Press and Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021
P. Shuai, Understanding Pulsars and Space Navigations, Navigation: Science
and Technology 11, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-1067-7_4
199