> And I'm pretty sure nobody anticipated how widely deployed it would be 45+ years later.
Or maybe they thought by now we would have replaced it with something better. Spacefaring was still riding high in the '70s, the brakes were only applied after '89 (sadly one of the many indirect effects of glasnost, RIP Gorbachev).
GPS was originally only for military use; opening it up to civilians didn't come until later. They didn't anticipate all of us pesky civilians coming up with creative new uses for it (like time keeping in our networks) or putting it in millions of devices that don't have strict maintenance schedules.
Or maybe they thought by now we would have replaced it with something better. Spacefaring was still riding high in the '70s, the brakes were only applied after '89 (sadly one of the many indirect effects of glasnost, RIP Gorbachev).