Why Make A Universe of Data Available To The Public?

 

Over the past 50 years, NASA has taken people into space, to the surface of the moon, and has allowed people to see Earth, other planets in our solar system, and the depths of space through the eyes of satellites, telescopes, robots, and through the cameras of astronauts. With each passing decade, advances in technology made images clearer, the information coming back from space richer, and the world smaller.

In 1969, America watched on television as NASA landed on the Moon. In 1997, America downloaded “live” images of Mars on the Internet. Ten years from now, how will America experience and participate in the new era of space exploration? How will NASA leverage zettabytes of data to the benefit of humanity?

This is the intro of a white paper I am currently working on. In this white paper I am taking a look at NASA’s current external facing web presence, and with an outlook of what space exploration and the web might look like 10 years from now, describe how I think NASA should re-architect itself in order to fully leverage the web as platform and take the lead in open, transparent and participatory space exploration and government (previous post).

I am reminded again of this intro while reading our announcement today – we’re teaming up with Microsoft to make a universe of data available to the public.

A little over 2 years ago, in my previous role as strategic business development lead here at NASA Ames, I negotiated the NASA Google collaboration. At the time, I aspired it to be the first in a series of Space Act Agreements NASA would sign with companies that share my vision to make NASA’s data – and America’s investment in space exploration – more accessible to the world on the Internet. Having since moved on to become the NASA Ames Chief Information Officer, today’s announcement of our collaboration with Microsoft – which we worked on for over 18 months – signifies another exciting step in this direction.

Moving towards a web of data
Working with partners such as Microsoft, Google, and Cisco to share our data with the world is part of a larger strategy that ties in with the next evolutionary phase of the web as we move from a web of linked documents to a web of linked data. These last few weeks I have been excited to read about our new Federal CIO Vivek Kundra and his plans to establish Data.gov to provide the public with access to all federal information that is not private or restricted for national security reasons. As I said two years ago, NASA has gathered more data about the solar system than any other agency in the world, and I look forward to working with Vivek and our team at NASA to increase the public accessibility of this data.

Developing a new space data architecture
Our agreement with Microsoft is unique in the sense that we will host the NASA data here at NASA Ames (over 100 terabytes) and serve it on the web through the WorldWide Telescope (WWT) platform. In a sense, we are using the context rich environment of WWT through our partnership with Microsoft to provide our audience a window into the universe of data we have gathered and continue to gather with our satellites and telescopes.
This data will be hosted on a new cloud platform built on open source technology that was specifically designed to host vast quantities of scientific data. The platform will enable scientists to build applications on a common, secure framework. Several new pilot projects built on this platform will be coming out in the weeks and months ahead, so stay tuned…

And in honor of the recent successful launch of the NASA Kepler mission, let me leave you with this intruiging thought I recently came across in this article:

The night sky is essentially a database, crammed with information in the form of electromagnetic radiation, known more generically as light.

10 thoughts on “Why Make A Universe of Data Available To The Public?”

  1. Well, if there’s anything I’ve learned in 53 years of life, it’s that there’s nothing harder than trying to predict the future. Just watch “Back To The Future Part 2” sometime…I’m saving my money for that hover conversion!

  2. Hi Chris,

    Someone who reads my space blog suggested I check your pages and to say I was impressed with the projects you have in mind is an understatement. I am covering the Telescope project and your blog today. If you want the link send me a note: americansinspace@yahoo.com

    Good luck on upcoming projects.

    Luck = Preparation meeting opportunity

  3. I’ve been working with Chris for a couple of years, and I’ll be interested to see where he goes. http://www.nasa.gov continues to expand, having added blogs, user commenting and ratings, social bookmarking since the redesign went live 18 months ago. We seen steady growth in visits to the site and a huge spike in RSS hits, which now account for 40 percent of all “visits” to http://www.nasa.gov. More importantly, we’ve seen the highest sustained customer satisfaction ratings we’ve ever had.

    Chris’s effort to get more data in people’s hands directly is laudable. I’d rather it be in some standards-based open format rather than handed over to a private group Microsoft — which offers only an inferior web client to anyone not using IE on Windows — but it’s a start. If the Administration’s data.gov comes to fruition, such things will be available to all.

    Since I took over http://www.nasa.gov in 1995, we have rarely been in steady-state operations. We’ve always been trying to add capabilities, bring in more content and build on the innovations often found elsewhere at NASA. The next few years will be exciting, and Chris’ efforts are going to be very important.

  4. Chris,
    Thank you for above insight:
    `The night sky is essentially a database, crammed with information in the form of electromagnetic radiation, known more generically as light.` FAR-OUT statement. How can a DBA assist in forming the fundamental patterns STORAGE/Access STRUCTURES of -electromagnetic radiation- to derive,infer predictive patterns or illucidate new knowledge. Respectfully, Eric

  5. Chris,

    Working with partners such as Microsoft, Google, and Cisco to share our data with the world is part of a larger strategy that ties in with the next evolutionary phase of the web as we move from a web of linked documents to a web of linked data.

    Thank you for above.

    I live in thailand. I think nasa.gov is great. I read info form here.And it save my money.

    Stephen Conner

  6. IT IS IMPORTANT TO ME TO HAVE GOOD NEW SCIENCE INFORMATION AVAILABLE RIGHT AWAY. THANKS FOR POST THIS AND I WAITING FOR NEXT POST.

  7. Thank you for above insight:
    `The night sky is essentially a database, crammed with information in the form of electromagnetic radiation, known more generically as light.` FAR-OUT statement. How can a DBA assist in forming the fundamental patterns STORAGE/Access STRUCTURES of -electromagnetic radiation- to derive,infer predictive patterns or illucidate new knowledge. Respectfully, Eric

    Congratulations for this interesting featured picture! A whole new world…!

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