Under a new agreement between NASA and Google, considerable amounts of data will be available through applications developed by the space agency. Last year, Google agreed to start a research center at NASA’s Ames Research Center. Chris Kemp, director of strategic business development at Ames, said of the data on hand at NASA, “Even though this information was collected for the benefit of everyone, and much is in the public domain, the vast majority of this information is scattered and difficult for non-experts to access and to understand.”
The new agreement, called the Space Agreement Act, creates a partnership in which data from NASA about the Earth, the moon, and Mars will be accessible through tools such as Google Earth. The two organizations will also work together on new ways to analyze data collected by NASA every year. Michael Griffin, administrator of NASA, said, “This agreement between NASA and Google will soon allow every American to experience a virtual flight over the surface of the moon or through the canyons of Mars.”BBC, 19 December 2006
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6192523.stm
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