Google’s NASA piggyback ride to take it to space

Google experience in large-scale data management comes in handy for NASA.

BY OUR CORRESPONDENT
December  21, 2006

After having done almost everything on the internet space, Google now seems heading heavenward. And space is the place to be, thinks Google. Making this practical is an alliance with NASA Ames Research Center. 

The two have jointly announced the signed a space pact which establishes a relationship to work together on a variety of challenging technical problems ranging from large-scale data management and massively distributed computing, to human-computer interfaces. 

Setting the pact in motion would be the work on making the most useful of NASA's information available on the internet. These include real-time weather forecasts, high-resolution 3-D maps of the moon and Mars. According to the pact, real-time tracking of the international space station and the space shuttle will be explored in the future. 

According to a NASA official, the agreement between NASA and Google is expected to facilitate man to experience a virtual flight over the surface of the moon or through the canyons of Mars. The agreement may be seen as NASA’s acknowledgement of Google’s technical expertise and data. 

The two might also work jointly in areas like incorporating agency data sets in Google Earth, focusing on user studies and cognitive modeling for human computer interaction, and science data search utilizing a variety of Google features and products. Reports also said that NASA and Google also are finalizing details for additional collaborations that include joint research, products, facilities, education and missions.