The U.S. space agency takes a huge amount of data from remote platforms each day – and with plans to launch a few new satellites by 2022, its data collection will soon increase by about 50 petabytes per year.
Over the past 18 to 24 months, according to the chief data officer in its field of science, NASA has seen the need to increase the diversity of people who can answer space questions using the earth’s data it collects.
“Public access to information is important, isn’t it? Public data, therefore, is available to anyone for any purpose. And we do all kinds of things – we can find new planets, find new jobs on Mars, look at the Earth in new and different ways and use it to help manage our response to climate change or natural disasters, ”NASA’s Kevin Murphy said on Tuesday during the AWS Summit in Washington DC “And in fact, having people access to that information is very important, especially if they can put the information next to that.”
One way to meet that goal is to teach the public how to make effective use of open source tools and software, including free and flexible source code, as well as other resources to answer questions based on the data themselves. Therefore, NASA is preparing to launch a new program called Transform to Open Science, says Murphy, “to train the next generation of computer scientists and computer scientists to use [artificial intelligence, mechanical learning] and open-source tools available to make scientific work more quickly. ”
A workshop linked to the project, ultimately aimed at helping start the discovery of “open science” in all NASA-related communities, is set for next month.
The agency has been using DevOps methods for some time now, Murphy said. That proves useful in this context as it helps to speed up the flow of data in cloud environments and the integration of various databases, so scientists can benefit from more than a complete system view.
“It’s not just looking at the ocean or the earth – it’s the way the two of them meet the wind,” Murphy said. “So combining those data sets is very important.”
He also added that while conducting scientific research it is often difficult, to do so in the far-reaching reality of the COVID-19 flu in moreso, especially for those who do not have access to the appropriate tools for cooperation. Many exist, and Murphy’s agency uses some, but not without limits.
“We have to do better – not only at NASA, but I think the whole government – so that we can make people use these skills more efficiently,” he said. “I think the other big thing is how you submit information from various agencies, and compile data from that.”
Murphy was joined by experts from two other agencies in the discussion, which included a number of topics including experiences that helped keep their organizations active during the ongoing epidemic.
Veterans Affairs Department Director of the Enterprise Cloud Solutions Office Dave Catanoso said since the novel’s coronavirus emerged, the agency has gone from using about 25,000 television sets a month to more than 45,000 a day. Now that veterans are anticipating that level and type of engagement, Canatanoso said VA officials do not see the expectations of this high technology use changing in the future.
Chief Executive Officer of Small Business Management Keith Bluestein also elaborated on how officials related to his organisation’s finances paid off loans in 14 days more than those paid 14 years earlier. In addition, more economic damage loans were issued at that time than in the organization’s 67-year history.
“People are out of the ordinary way of doing business and are suddenly being replaced – and are achieving those skills,” he said.
