Monday, December 18, 2006

Not being satisfied with having taken over the planet, Google sets it’s sights on a galaxy far, far away…









NASA Schedules Briefing to Discuss Google Agreement

WHAT: Media briefing announcing details of Space Act Agreement with Google, Inc.

WHEN: 11:00 a.m. PST, Monday, Dec. 18, 2006.


UPDATE: NASA and Google to Bring Space Exploration Down to Earth

As the first in a series of joint collaborations, Google and Ames will focus on making the most useful of NASA's information available on the Internet. Real-time weather visualization and forecasting, high-resolution 3-D maps of the moon and Mars, real-time tracking of the International Space Station and the space shuttle will be explored in the future.

"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," said NASA Administrator Michael Griffin at Headquarters in Washington. "This innovative combination of information technology and space science will make NASA's space exploration work accessible to everyone," added Griffin.


Read on...

5 comments:

Argon said...

Isn't that a bit premature? They haven't said what they're announcing until tomorrow.

I grew up next to the NASA Ames facility and it shares my name, it's known for having the largest wind tunnel in the world. I used to watch the Blue Angels perform there from the roof of my house as a kid.

But I haven't figured out what Google is going to do there yet. It might be something as simple as sharing some office space, since they are only 3 miles apart in Mountain View. They have some sophisticated VR simulations there so Gogle might be sharing some of their servers.

It could be a lot of things that aren't in that press release since it only gives the time and place for the the meeting tomorrow, I'd wait until then before jumping to any conclusions about Google conquering space.

Kansas said...

Oh, Argon, my dear friend. I’m going to ignore the fact that you’re named after a wind tunnel!

I can’t imagine what they’re going to announce either, but it should be interesting.

Argon said...

No, not after the wind tunnel, but after a physics professor who was one of the founding members of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA, the predecessor of NASA) and its longtime chairman (1919-1939). NASA Ames Research Center is named after him. I'm not sure how exactly we're related since I couldn't find him on the family tree so it's probably fairly distantly.

It looks like I was right about 2 of the points that Google was after since I read the news today Google Seals Deal With NASA that Google unveiled plans to build a 1 million-square-foot campus at the NASA center and also that Ames and Google also have vowed to work together to solve complex computing problems, including large-scale data management. so I guess they are sharing some of their office space and servers.

It sounds like the deal is good for NASA since it'll make it easier to find all the cool stuff they've done and promote their image a lot more among people online.

I guess Google benefits by having a lot more content to use to place ads among. Sounds like a win/win deal for everyone since most people will have a lot more access to all the research NASA has spent the taxpayers money on.

Kansas said...

I agree it’s pretty fascinating, but also a little troubling, because it’s Google. We already have Google Earth, which is a very fun (and I believe dangerous) little tool. Next we will have Google Space or Google Universe, which actually would be less threatening than Google Earth.

Argon said...

Well they've already had Google Mars for a while, maybe if they upgrade it, they can let people keep a better eye on stuff so they won't let the Mars Rovers get the parts stripped to be left up on blocks like in that Pepsi commercial *wink*

But I have been using a lot of the images from NASA in my graphic designs for a while. Like that Loreal Shampoo ad I did had the blue nebula background from the Hubble Space Telescope. Hopefully stuff like that will be easier to find when Google gets involved.