4.1: NASA and Data.gov
Make NASA data accessible from Data.gov, either through raw data feeds, tools, or geospatial catalogues. Other Information:
Discover. Participate. Engage. www.Data.gov -- NASA provides billions of gigabytes (exobytes) of data from its rich history
of planetary, lunar, terrestrial, and Earth-orbiting missions. From rocket testing to the geologic maps of Mars, our data
has been available to the public via a variety of sites. Now, all that data will be accessible from Data.gov, either through
raw data feeds, tools, or geospatial catalogues. As Data.gov continues to take shape and evolve from its initial release,
we will continue to look for ways to use it to align, extend, complement, and provide amplifier effects for our data products.
The platform provides an opportunity to release information not previously publicly available, such as administrative and
procedural information within NASA. The public can find raw datasets to perform their own analysis, experiments, and learning.
Developers can create applications that bring new insights and understandings of our Earth the universe, and the space program.
Overview: Data.gov was created in 2009 as a step toward implementing a more open and accountable government. Each Agency participates
by providing support and recommendations to the architecture of the site as well as populating Data.gov with its data. For
NASA, as a missiondriven Agency, data is at the heart of what we do. We have 100 years of government data on aeronautics,
earth science, and space exploration and we have a process to archive data, manage existing data, and learn from real-time
data. Since NASA’s inception, we have publicly archived data received from spacecraft projects, with thousands of gigabytes
(terabytes) of new science data collected each day. We have tools and geodata catalogs available to allow scientists to access
our data. When accessed through these Distributed Active Archive Centers (DAACs), tools, and catalogs, the user gets more
value out of the aggregated data than he or she would with a single dataset. Our existing community of scientists and researchers
rely on these resources to conduct their research. An internal NASA Data.gov Working Group was formed to liaise between Data.gov
and our data curators at NASA. We have participated in the evolution of data.gov to include tools and web services. By January
2010, NASA had submitted 519 datasets (including geodata) and 21 tools to Data.gov. We identified three high value datasets
and five high-value tools as part of the Open Government Directive. Below is a list of three high-value data products accessible
via Data.gov: • Global Change Master Directory (gcmd.nasa.gov/) is an integrated platform with continuously updated information
about the planet's vital signs, including the rising global temperature, size of the ozone hole, the rising sea level, and
the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The database holds more than 30,000 descriptions of Earth science data sets,
services and ancillary descriptions covering all aspects of Earth and environmental sciences for fields from fisheries to
remote sensing. The mission of the Global Change Master Directory is to offer a high quality resource for the discovery, access,
and use of Earth science data and data-related services worldwide, while specifically promoting the discovery and use of NASA
data. The directory resource is targeted to serve as a valued location for sharing data from multinational sources and, in
turn, will contribute to scientific research by providing stewardship of metadata and direct access to Earth science data
and services. The Planetary Data System is an archive of data products from NASA planetary missions, and it has become a basic
resource for scientists around the world. 55 missions have their data archived on PDS and through the search functionality,
users can find the data of interest to download, rather than downloading the entire mission’s data. Data hosted here is what
has provided the baseline imagery for Google Moon and Google Mars. • NASA World Wind (worldwind.arc.nasa.gov – see call-out
in Open Source at NASA fact sheet) is a web service and open source project with nightly builds which allows people to zoom
from satellite altitude into any place on Earth, leveraging satellite imagery and mission data, and thus experience Earth
terrain in visually rich 3D. It is the world’s best open source 3D geospatial viewer. NASA World Wind Java is also a plug
in to allow third party users to use their own information and view it through the World Wind Java widget. Third party developers
have developed a range of applications from visualizing Australia’s continental data sets, a Search and Rescue application
to assist in planning after an airplane goes mission to a 3D visualization of airspaces. 15 user applications and 22 other
applications and applets are available for download here: worldwind.arc.nasa.gov/java/demos/. The Working Group understands
the opportunity to reach out to new stakeholders via Data.gov, including application developers, social scientists, researchers,
citizen scientists, and data enthusiasts. We believe that the Data.gov platform will facilitate even greater usage of our
existing Web services which will provide incentive for us to find additional information to make available for download. We
have identified numerous applications and web services to add to Data.gov and have targeted the following three for a May
2010 submission to Data.gov: • Workforce Information Cubes at NASA – locations, occupations, grades, salaries, and demographics
every NASA civil servant since 1993 (see above) • Education Weekly Activity Report – weekly summaries from each Education
office throughout NASA (see Education and Open Government section) • NASA Enterprise Directory – name, address, and phone
number of every NASA civil servant or contractor (see below) Some of the lessons we learned from the Citizen Engagement Tool
used during the development of this plan (opennasa.ideascale.com) is that it helps to understand what people are interested
in as well as assist with internal collaboration between our employees. We are committed to receiving public and employee
ideas for additional high-value datasets, particularly datasets from the institutional and procedural realms of our activities.
We would like to have an open dialogue regarding proposed Data.gov submissions to ensure we are making available datasets
that are of interest to our communities. Since some datasets take a considerable amount of time to ensure data quality (abiding
by security and respective personally identifiable information) and translate their data structure into something of utility
for Data.gov, we want to ensure stakeholders will use it. We believe this public dialogue will assist people to learn more
about what currently exists, what can exist, identify the correct offices and data curators internally, and best of all give
greater insight into the inner workings of the U.S. space program. In summary, our strategy for moving forward includes the
development of a useful public dialog to source, comment, and vote on proposed datasets to release to the public. The Working
Group will work with our data curators and Office of the Chief Engineer to better understand the programmatic utility of having
all data we collect available online in an open format and incorporating this into our systems for program management. How
This Fits into Open Government: NASA’s participation in Data.gov expands the audience for the vast body of knowledge captured
in nearly 100 years of U.S. aeronautics and space data. Computer software developers, using these data sources, can help many
more people participate in the exploration of space and our Earth by helping to create new ways of looking at these datasets.
Additionally, by releasing information about administrative and procedural information within NASA, researchers and analysts
can understand more about the innerworkings of NASA as well as allow our own employees to better understand other functions
of our Agency.
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