When I first came to NASA in January, I wasn’t really sure what to expect. For a long time, I’d been an observer on the outside, from watching shuttle launches on the TV in elementary school to excitingly following the progress of Spirit and Opportunity as they began their exploration of Mars in 2004. I knew very little, however, about how the inner-workings of NASA functioned. How does an agency so large, with so many levels and people and locations, manage to accomplish such incredible things?
On one hand, some might say it’s easy. After all, space is cool. Who doesn’t get excited when they see pictures of Earth from the International Space Station or get chills down their back when they hear the iconic first words from the Moon?
International Space Station seen during the STS-130 mission
On the other hand, NASA’s mission is extraordinarily difficult. One mistake could result in the loss of a multi-million dollar mission, or worse. It takes tens of thousands of people working tirelessly to ensure that NASA continues to make incredible progress in science and technology.
And now, for a time, I get to be one of them.
In the relatively short time I’ve been here, I’ve gotten involved with many awesome projects, including planning NASA’s first ever water sustainability forum, participating in creating our Open Government Plan, and sharing the excitement of the STS-130 mission through social media on Facebook. I hope to give you an outsider’s view from the inside on these projects and many more in the upcoming months.
Under President Obama’s Open Government Initiative, NASA is exploring new ways to share with the public the exciting science we take part in every day. NASA has a long history of sharing its discoveries with the public, but figuring out how to present it in a way that is both easy to understand and simple to use frequently poses a challenge. By partnering with private industry, NASA has the opportunity to take advantage of existing technology innovations that can deliver science data in a format that is more publically consumable.
Today, NASA and Microsoft unveiled the latest version of WorldWide Telescope, featuring the highest resolution and most complete map of Mars images ever released. Over 13,000 images from NASA’s HiRISE camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, each with a resolution of about 100 times that of a 10 megapixel point-and-shoot camera, have been mapped onto a 3D globe of the Martian surface. They offer unparalleled views of spectacular surface features, including imagery of the Mars Phoenix Lander site and Olympus Mons – the highest peak in our solar system.
Soaring above Mars in WorldWide Telescope
Bringing all of these incredible images to user’s desktop computers is not an easy feat. With hundreds of terabytes of data available, the images must be made available “on demand” as users fly across the Martian surface, only loading terrain data when necessary. To accomplish this, the intelligent robotics group at Ames Research Center turned to NASA’s Nebula cloud computing platform. Nebula provides flexible and efficient science-class compute and storage services that easily scale to meet the needs of NASA scientists and researchers. Nebula was one of three Flagship Initiatives in NASA’s Open Government Plan and is one of the primary tools that is enabling NASA to more easily collaborate with private industry, academia and engage with the public in ways never before possible.
Nebula is located in modular shipping containers at NASA Ames Research Center.
Nebula turned the 13,000 images from HiRISE into half a billion smaller images that can be served in real-time to a broadband connection. Creating this huge mosaic took two weeks of number crunching on 114 of Nebula’s central processing units. The project demonstrated the powerful capabilities of Nebula, which has been utilized in situations as diverse as hosting federal spending data on USAspending.gov to providing a mechanism for amateur astronomers across the globe to upload their images of the LCROSS impact on the lunar south pole.
Technology innovations like Nebula are integral in NASA’s efforts to partner with industry to create products and services that make NASA’s data more easily consumable to public audiences. As we move forward in creating an environment of even greater transparency and participation at NASA, we hope to deliver even more engaging experiences that provide the American public with better insight into the cosmos, planet earth, and the work going on at NASA.
I’m currently sitting in my hotel room in Cocoa Beach, Florida eagerly awaiting the start of the STS-132 Launch Tweetup, which begins tomorrow and culminates on Friday with the launch of the Space Shuttle Atlantis. For those of you who don’t know, NASA Tweetups are events held around the country where NASA opens its doors to those who follow and interact with us on Twitter. 150 participants were randomly selected from the pool of registrants for this particular event, and it looks like it’s going to be a blast!
We start off early tomorrow with talks from Robert Braun, NASA Chief Technologist, and Astronaut Janice Voss, among others, before boarding buses for a tour of NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. With luck, we’ll be able to stop by Launch Pad 39A to watch the retraction of the Rotating Service Structure and see Atlantis in all its glory mere hours before it takes to the skies. On Friday, we’ll hear from a weather officer from the Air Force’s 45th Space Wing Weather Squadron and a STS-132 closeout crew member, just to name a few, before watching the launch of Atlantis at approximately 2:20 p.m. Eastern time.
View of the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) and launch countdown clock from the NASA Tweetup site earlier today. Thanks to Beth Beck for the picture.
Of course, even if you’re not here on the Cape, you are more than welcome to take part! Participants are using the hashtag #nasatweetup on Twitter to share details of what they are doing – expect tons of great images, quotes, and more to appear. I’ll also be roaming around with my handy video camera capturing video interviews of attendees to be posted on YouTube. If that’s not enough for you, all of the speakers and demonstrations done at the Tweetup will be streamed live on the internet for all to see.
Tons of people have put in lots of time and effort to make this event happen, and its looking to be a great time for all, both for those here in Florida and for those following along on the web. Of course, Tweetups aren’t the only time NASA uses social media to interact with the public – check out https://www.nasa.gov/connect/index.html to find out all the ways to stay informed!
Last Wednesday, NASA, along with 23 other federal agencies, released its Open Government Plan to comply with President Obama’s Open Government Directive. I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to work closely on the development and production of the Plan, and it’s great to see it finally out in the wild!
I started working on the Open Government Directive in early February, not long after I came here. The plan was just in the beginning stages, which provided me with tons of opportunities to work directly with those who were mapping out the strategy for how to approach the Directive as well as with members of the individual project teams which were to be highlighted in the final document. I’ve never worked on a project this large or complicated before, so it was incredible to see how much effort went in to ensuring the Plan was correct down to every last word.
The Cover of NASA’s Open Government Plan
As the pace quickened in the weeks leading up to the April 7th deadline, I had the chance to take the reins on some parts of the project as we assembled the final document. It’s not very often that an undergraduate has the opportunity to write sections of a document set to be delivered to the White House, so it was great to be able to get that sort of experience! I primarily worked on the Citizen Engagement Analysis section as well as assisting on the Letter to Transparency Advocates.
The Plan also has some awesome initiatives highlighted. My personal favorites are the Open Source Software Development and Participatory Exploration Office sections. Both have the potential to get members of the public involved in NASA activities in new, innovative ways – a great opportunity for NASA to explore avenues of development and for the public to become engaged with NASA on a novel level.
You can view NASA’s entire Open Government Plan here. The plan, however, isn’t just for consumption. Be sure to give your feedback on the plan via NASA’s IdeaScale tool as well!
Last night, I went to see Hubble 3D at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC. I’ve always been enamored with the incredible photos the Hubble Space Telescope provides us of the cosmos, but experiencing them in 3D on a six story screen gave a whole new dimension (literally) to the amazing expanses of our universe.
The Helix Nebula, as seen from the Hubble Space Telescope in 2002
Apart from pretty visuals, however, Hubble 3D also kindled a sense of awe in me. It’s mind blowing to realize we have built a technology that enables us to see further than any of us can even really even comprehend. The images and 3D models Hubble produces not only make incredible desktop photos. They allow us to better understand our galactic neighborhood, to figure out how our planet came to be, and to find other worlds like ours.
Astronauts repair the Hubble Space Telescope during STS-125.
The awe I felt while watching Hubble 3D is the same awe I felt back in elementary school, when my teacher turned the TV on to let us all watch the launch of the Space Shuttle Discovery carrying John Glenn. It’s the same awe I felt years later as the first images from the Mars rover Spirit were sent back to Earth, unveiling new details about a still unfamiliar world, or in 2007 as I saw Space Shuttle Endeavour launch in person from the Kennedy Space Center.
I remember during each of those moments saying that I wanted to be part of that. I wanted to work for NASA. And, now that I do, I realize the importance of passing on that dream to the next generation, to continue inspiring and motivating children to discover new things about our world. Hubble 3D manages to blend elements of inspiration, education, and wonder into a film less than an hour long. It’s an incredible experience – and it made me realize just how lucky I am to be able to say I’m living my dream.
One of the most exciting things I’ve had the opportunity to work on over the past few months is LAUNCH, a global initiative to identify and support innovative work that has the potential to contribute to a sustainable future. Through a series of forums, each focusing on a different sustainability challenge, LAUNCH aims to accelerate groundbreaking sustainable projects into real solutions that can make a difference on earth – and beyond.
One of the forefront challenges facing our planet today is water sustainability, so that seemed like a perfect starting place for us to begin. Along with our partners, USAID, the State Department, and NIKE, we hosted the first forum, LAUNCH: Water, last week at the Kennedy Space Center. To say it was an incredible experience would be downplaying the awesome discussions that happened.
We gathered 26 world-class experts in a variety of fields, such as Robin Chase, founder of ZipCar, and Anil Gupta, co-chair of the Honeybee Network in India, as part of the LAUNCH Council. We then also brought in 10 innovators, each with a unique solution to some of the most difficult challenges on the planet. After showcasing their innovations to the Council, the Innovators had the opportunity to break into small groups (called Impact Rotations) with council members. In the impact rotations, council members and innovators discussed the potential issues, opportunities, and logistics behind each of the individual innovations. Many of the discussions gave the innovators valuable ideas and insights as to how to move forward with their projects. Walking around the room while the discussions were taking place gave me a great feeling of inspiration – so many of the innovations, from pipes that can use salt water to irrigate plants to a network of robots that can track changes in water systems, have the ability to make huge positive changes on our planet, not to mention the opportunities they present for managing water on long-duration space missions.
Exciting discussions abound at LAUNCH: Water
With so much innovation and cutting edge discussions going on, there couldn’t have been a better place to host LAUNCH: water than the Kennedy Space Center. Being at KSC also offered some incredible opportunities to our LAUNCH Council and Innovators. We spent Wednesday morning giving LAUNCH attendees some close up time with two of the Space Shuttle orbiters – Discovery as it sat on pad 39A awaiting its targeted April 5th launch for STS-131, and Endeavour as it was being worked on in the Orbiter Processing Facility. Walking underneath Endeavour made everyone look like they were 11 years old again (myself included). The sheer awe in realizing this incredible machine goes to space provided inspiration and a realization of what was truly possible through the combination of innovation and collaboration, the core tenets of LAUNCH.
We ended the day with a toast at dinner to water innovation. Rather than an ordinary toast, however, we drank from glasses filled with recycled water that was filtered using the same technique as on the International Space Station. Although I was a bit apprehensive at first to drink machine processed astronaut urine, I put my faith in the brilliant minds working everyday to solve the challenges we are facing here on Earth. I’m happy to report that it tasted no different than the water I drink from my filtered pitcher in my apartment.
Preparing to make a toast with recycled water at LAUNCH: Water. Tasted great!
At the end of the forum on Thursday, we invited the innovators to take the stage one last time to reflect on their experiences at LAUNCH. Universally, the response was that LAUNCH was unlike any other conference they had attended. The unique and diverse group of people that LAUNCH brought together challenged the innovators to think outside of normal boundaries and envision possibilities for their projects to go in directions they hadn’t imagined.
If you didn’t have the chance to follow LAUNCH: Water via the live video stream we provided last week, visit www.launch.org to learn more about the various innovations that were featured. We’re also going to continue tweeting @launchorg when we hear updates from any of our innovators or have news about future LAUNCH events.
Lastly, I wanted to thank everyone on the LAUNCH team, especially Beth Beck, Diane Powell, and Robbie Schingler, for making it possible for me to attend the forum. It was a great experience, and one more reason for me to believe I have the most exciting, fun, and educational internship ever!
Me in front of the Space Shuttle Discovery at Kennedy Space Center during LAUNCH: Water
Meet Sean Herron, NASA’s Space Operations Outreach Intern. We’ve asked himto blog about his experiences exploring the Earthly side of Space here at Headquarters in Washington D.C. As a student of government policy, he’s come to the right place. Soon he’ll be sharinginside-the-beltway stories like an old NASA pro.
Sean came to us from Syracuse University. He can tell youhow he got here, what he’s studying, and where he wants to go from here. Youshould know, though, that Sean has a history with NASA. He first came to ourattention in 2006 as a finalist in NASA’s Greatest Fan video contest, held inconjunction with WIRED’s Nextfest in New York City. Yes, he’s a space cadet, and we have proof in his video entry.
Sean’s entry, “Dream Car,” was one of our favorites. Clever.Engaging. Funny. The images tell the story. Sean may not have won the NASA’sGreatest Fan title, but he certainly secured a place in our hearts. And here heis today, helping us share the drama and magic of space. Fitting, don’t youthink?
