NASA’s Ames Research Center and Google have signed a Space Act Agreement that establishes a relationship between the space agency and the Internet company. They plan to work together to solve a variety of problems including large-scale data management and massively distributed computing, as well as human-computer interfaces.
One of the first publicly visible projects the two will collaborate on will bring NASA’s information to the Internet, including real-time weather visualization and forecasting, high-res 3D maps of the moon and Mars, and real-time tracking of the International Space Station and space shuttles.
NASA will provide Google with data sets for its Google Earth software, and will work with the company on user studies and cognitive modeling for human computer interactive. Google products will also be used to make NASA’s science data searchable.
The government organization and the company also note that they’re “finalizing details” for other collaborations, such as joint research, products, facilities, education and missions.