In 1983, however, the crew of Korean Air Lines Flight 007, flying from New York City to Seoul via Anchorage, Alaska, made an error in their navigational calculations and accidentally strayed into the prohibited airspace of the USSR. Mistaking the airliner for a spy plane, the Soviets shot it down, killing all 269 people aboard, including Larry McDonald, a US congressman from Georgia. Recognizing that GPS could have prevented this tragedy, President Ronald Reagan directed the Department of Defense to make GPS freely available for civilian use. As a common good, it became even more powerful than
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