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Google And NASA To Collaborate On Technology
Mike Peel writes "The BBC reports that Google will be assisting NASA with new technology from a campus facility in the NASA Research Park at Moffett Field." From the article: "As part of the venture, Google will develop one million square feet of real estate at the Nasa Ames research centre. The centre, built in 1939, has been at the heart of the US space program for many years, conducting research into the Apollo moon missions between 1963 and 1972. Nasa recently unveiled plans to make another moon landing by 2020. Examples of areas of potential collaboration include the development of new types of remote sensors and improving analysis of engineering problems." More details available from the official press release and MSNBC.
A giant leap for google kind towards the Copernicus Center
liqbase
http://moon.google.com/ and http://www.google.com/jobs/lunar_job.html
Argh.
They're going to replace all of NASA's chairs with inflatable exercise balls.
Google has secretly been launching recon satellites into orbit around the moon, and will soon be unveliling their Google Moon satellite maps.
Ignore Alien Orders
One million square feet! is certainly a lots of real estate space (no pun intended) that in the South Bay Area has to be worth a not insignificant chunk of change. Granted, Moffett field sits on an amazing amount of land and although I have not been back to the base for years, I imagine it is still some pretty choice real estate that just so happens to be right up the road from Google.
It also might be of interest to note that Moffett is right next door to a former NIMA (NRO) facility and given Google's interest in mapping the surface of the Earth and other remote sensing activities, might be pretty convenient.
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At the forefront of the new technology, sharks with frikkin' laser beams, in space...
It's just a glorified real-estate leasing deal, which will use up some of the office space created by the latest layoffs at NASA-Ames:
7 63469.htm
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/12
The bigger Google gets the closer this world gets to becoming a better place.
3 cheers for Sergey and Larry!
"Do no evil!"
"Do no evil!"
"Do no evil!"
If you "get" pointers add me as a friend (116)!
"Google and NASA share a common desire--to bring a universe of information to people around the world," said Eric Schmidt, Google chief executive officer. "Imagine having a wide selection of images from the Apollo space mission at your fingertips whenever you want it. That's just one small example of how this collaboration could help broaden technology's role in making the world a better place." So I guess that's the next Google venture. Good thing is that they're supporting the ailing yet very crucial organisation like NASA. good job fellas!
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All right, I'm done. Warn your children! This is what happens when your out of work!
Evil people don't think they're evil. - George Lucas, Making of Ep III
Small step for a huge firm to help NASA with some real estate.
Huge freaking text ad on the MOON!
You can't handle the truth.
Jeez, did you use this to compose that post?
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
They really are trying to search everything, aren't they?
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
This brings a whole new meaning to Google Earth.
;)
I mean we all know their main business is adverts
...What's Google getting out of this deal? Money? Land? Connections to the government?
And on that note, I for one, welcome our new space-searching overlords.
NASA, for one, welcomes their new Google overlords.
(On a side note, how would you like to be the research leader at NASA? Just walk over to the Google labs financial office and be like 'uhh...hi....I'm kinda working on this new project and...um, it will cost $400,000,000 to get it in space by 2012...can you spot me and I'll pay you back later?)
they're no rocket scientists. How in the heck can a search engine help NASA? What could Google possibly offer?
-jpeg
"Mission Control, this is Mars Pathfinder 1, we are experiencing minor power fluctuations on bus C and require some diagnostic advice, over..."
"Pathfinder 1, roger that, wait one..."
"Pathfinder, this is Mission Control, please surf to history.nasa.gov/ap13rb/ch4pt.2.pdf. If you need a copy of Acrobat Reader please advise and I will supply the URL, over..."
AT&ROFLMAO
...and he grinned, like a fox eating shit out of a wire brush.
Google wants to do so many cool things, from scanning the world's books to helping us in space. But now that it's public it's only a matter of time before the stock holders start pulling back the reins. In the narrow view of the stock market it doesn't matter if you help people. It doesn't even matter if you make a profit. The sole thing that matters to the stock market is whether you're growing. That's it. If you're not focusing on that, you're out.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
Some people have been questioning the longevity of Google due to all the stock sales and other factors. These people are saying that Google is looking like a .com boom and will have a similar fate.
I wonder whether this venture is proof that Google stocks aren't going to crash any time soon and that Google won't blow up and leave behind a bunch of rich employees.
For a second there when I saw "Google and NASA collaborating on technology" I had a vain hope that it would be a reference to NASA World Wind. For those unsure (any Google Earth users), NASA World Wind is basically the same thing, only that it was around much earlier and (more importantly) it's open source software. On the down side, no expensive up-to-date imagery.
The Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence will be replaced by Google for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence.
One of the first fruits of the Google/NASA pairing will be the gShuttle. The existing space shuttle will be modified to store 10x the amount the previous shuttle could (though no details yet from NASA as to why they need that much space and if they'd actually use it). The new shuttle would also bring up paid advertisments based on various criteria, the formula for which Google has not made public. Another gShuttle innovation would be a radically simplier control and navigation system. The pilots will not simply type in their commands to the shuttle (e.g. "rearThrusters:fire burntime:10"). One particularly interesting feature is the "I feel lucky" button on the navigation console, no specifics as to the exact function of this button was put forth by the Google spokesdrone.
right on! now I'll be able to to search the moon and it'll be powered by google! next it'll be the gRocket!
With NASA's satellite mapping capability and Googles search engine. They can help Jimmy Buffet find that lost shaker of salt.
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
>>I'm sure the kids at Google are bright but they're no rocket scientists.
Actually, this is a big problem.
Google has cornered the market in big-brains, and has convinced dozens of top minds to leave their corporate overlords for the google brain collective.
Google is the largest collection of Highly Intelligent people focused in a single group since, well, NASA.
Its no wonder they are helping each other out. Its going to be a very mutually benificial relationship.
This is one of the reasons so many other companies are so pissed off at google. Theyve shuttled away all their biggest and best minds. Of course, thats google for you. Its still one of the best places to work in the world. And thats why people leave their current jobs for it.
Coming soon...
Google and Jesus team together to make gmessiah,
Google make a search engine to find your lost keys,
Google helps old lady across street,
Google buys slashdot and renames it gdot and uses it to post glowing reviews of itself
Bell Labs was heavily involved in the Apollo moon landing program. In both a technical capacity and a project management capacity. I remember early on, going to a meeting for new employees where all the senior managers introduced themselves and talked about their background. Years earlier, most of them had worked together on the Apollo moon landing.
Google has formed Google Labs including a lot of folks formerly from Bell Labs. It's interesting that NASA is working with them on the Moon Landing 2.0. Hopefully, without the bureaucracy of an AT&T, Google Labs will be more successful at translating R&D into marketable product. So far, their early track record looks very promising.
[Insert pithy quote here]
NASA are gonna use google convert
A merger of the buzzwords that drive the investors of today.
NASA has called in private companies before. IBM got to keep a good deal of technology they developed in the 1960s & 1970s for NASA. One of the most famous program in particular for the mainframe is JES and a version of JES is still used by every IBM mainframe system. Banks, insurance companies, and other large manufacturers still depend heavily on software initially developed to put someone on the moon. It's pretty cool when you think about it and I hope Google will get the same type of benefit from working with NASA.
Ah, finally a take on the NASA deal that doesn't involve slashdot users falling over themselves to praise Google. But seriously, how do you go from selling text ads on websites to saying you are going to build nanotechnology for NASA? Did Eric/Larry/Sergey eat the brown acid at burning man this year or something? I was there and heard from several folks that they were too, although I didn't see them personally.
Results 1 - 10 of about 337,000,000 for hotel. (0.11 seconds)
Your search was limited to: Solar System / Earth.
Would you like to extend your search to other locations?
Please note that it may take up to a couple trillions years for our Googled-Nasa Probes (tm) (beta) to scan the most distant, not yet explored galaxies. Thank you for your patience.
The problem with Slashdot memes is that YOU INSENSITIVE CLOD!
Google and NASA in the same /. story! Will they be using linux or some other open source software? If so, then we may have the Perfect /. Story!!
"In the game of life, someone always has to lose. To me, if life were fair, that someone would always be Oklahoma." -DKR
Google has already demonstrated its ability to censor searches for governments. Given the current political climate I wonder if Google will be compelled to censor searches in a way that will insure NASA's version of science remains the "official science" of America.
If people can't find what you published to read it, you perish.
Is it me or this is just a way for the US Government to channel money into Googles accounts??
Wonder want they're really paying?
- JFig http://jfig.net - http://del.icio.us/jfig/
Next news.. Google builds engine to search the elusive green martians :)
Way to go Google...
As you head out into the solar system and attempt to settle elsewhere, one of the problems is that you won't be able to google a query back to Earth and get a lightning fast response. (Well, uh, perhaps as fast as lightning, but that could be seconds, minutes, or hours....) You no longer can present every problem to Mission Control and wait for an answer. And you probably will not have trained for every scenario.
Survival of a small colony of smart people on the Moon or Mars could partly depend on taking large portions of your planetary knowledge base with you and looking for solutions that others have figured out but you haven't. (It also is a form of taking your culture with you.) The trick is to do it without rooms of massive power-hungry clusters, but for a smaller group of users. I can imagine Google working with NASA to pull some of these technologies together. Things like nanotechnology, one of the focal points of work at Ames, will be key to making it happen.
For all their mucking about in China and such they'll help Nasa use technology built in the 21st century.
For some reason I refuse to use either spell check or the spacebar properly.
Does anyone else think that maybe we're just in a Google-bubble, much like the internet bubble of the late 90s? I mean c'mon! Yeah, they wrote a search engine and they've made enough money to create a developer utopia where their programmers can be paid to work on thier own personal projects. Yeah, they have several other products out which utilize the internet in various ways. So now NASA, a government agency, is looking to spend taxpayer dollars to team up with Google... so they can bring the Apollo mission search results when we ask for them? And perform research into fields that Google only has money to due to an excessive amount of over speculation? Give me a break.
"After three days without programming, life becomes meaningless." - Tao of Programming
Ok, Google is a company based around providing Search services, and they do that well. All thier services are in some way related to information mining (searching), from web search, to geographical search, it's all search in the end.
But what incredible need does NASA have for a partner to provide search? Sure, data mining is a useful tool for NASA I'm sure, but why do they need Google to actually set up shop there with them to do this?
Seems to me like Google is expanding out of it's domain. And that's not usually a good thing. Pick one thing and do it well, don't try to be Jack of all trades.
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From the article:
"Google and Nasa share a common desire, to bring a universe of information to people around the world," said Eric Schmidt, Google's chairman and chief executive.
Whereas what he actually believed was this:
"Google wants to bring a universe of information to the people, whereas NASA wants to bring information about the universe to the people".
Steve Ballmar would be impressed.
NASA has big archives of space data, and they're only going to get bigger - the next generation of earth observing satellites are expected to generate 4 petabytes/year. That's 4 * 10**15, folks - think 8,000 500 GB drives. Per year. For at least the next ten years. One year is on the order of the size of Google's web cache.
Current archives are merely huge, and off-the-shelf databases are having trouble indexing it all - I've heard of a database holding just metadata (date/time, geographic extent, data type, resolution, format, etc.) for millions of observations where queries were taking tens of seconds, and this was with top-of-the-line commercial database software with all the spatial search bells and whistles.
If anybody can come up with a better way to store and index this stuff, it's Google.
To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.
thats where http://moon.google.com/ comes from
The best test environment is production. - Me
chrome://browser/content/browser.xul
we can just google for aliens now? Seti must be pissed.
Google Space Search
:)
|Aliens___________| Search
Geez....get it right, NASA is not a word it is an acronym, so stop writing Nasa and write NASA. Have a little respect you hippie freaks.
Will this mean all future NASA projects will be in a near-permanent Beta release? Oh wait, nothing new there...
The new "I'm feeling lucky" navigation button will get you to a random planet.
Just a few minutes ago CNN reported some UFO crashing somewhere around Redmond, could you guess where?
Best. Post. Evah.
Testing is slated to begin in Q4 2005 by searching for intelligent life here on Earth.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Well, I hope the collaboration does not imply NASA is going to land their ships with the aid of Google's close-range moon maps. Last I heard, they had some 'holes' in their technology.
My other post is a First.
I for one, welcome our Google overlords...
PS when's lunch?
http://www.sanluisobispo.com/mld/sanluisobispo/bus iness/technology/12772386.htm
When you're on federal land, the local and state governments can't tax the property or your buildings and you get to ignore their pesky building codes, etc.
Whatever happened to "do no evil"?
It seems odd at least for a company whose motto is "do no evil" to negotiate a deal in which the rent paid on public property is turned around to their 100% benefit rather than being used for something like offsetting other tax payer funded costs at NASA Ames.
Perhaps their motto should be "do no evil that any of our competitors wouldn't do in the same situation."
Search query: a l i e n s -> I'm Feeling Lucky
. csicop.org/si/8512/face-on-mars.jpg&imgrefurl=http ://www.csicop.org/si/8512/face-on-mars.html&h=200& w=200&sz=9&tbnid=wV2pf_vxAMoJ:&tbnh=99&tbnw=99&pre v=/images%3Fq%3Dface%2Bon%2Bmars%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D &oi=imagesr&start=2
*****searching
404 Not Found -> Back -> Search
*****searching
10 of 1000000000000000000 results found
Froogle results: Would you like to buy a new shuttle? Only $17,000,000.00!
Search results ranked in order:
Aliens found on Mars! -> *CLICK!*
404 Not Found -> Back -> Google Cache
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www
-> Back
New Search: Space Porn
*****searching
10 of 10000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 results found
Froogle: Would you like to buy a new space condom? $2!
-----------
Let's face it... Google would make SETI a lot more interesting.
The real motivation for this partnership is that Larry and Sergei get a big runway so they can take their shiny new plane to work...
bell labs came about as a result of a monopoly that legally gouged consumers on long distance service for decades. i hope google never has that power.
Yahoo! for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence.
The Rise and Fall of Online Community
The Famed Google and the Almighty NASA!
Slashdotters, er, I mean Google Zealot must be ejaculating with joy right now.
Do you all realize that Peter Norvig (Director of Search Quality at Google) used to head the Computational Sciences Division at NASA (which is based out of Ames)?
My understanding of this story is that it is just a means for getting office space. However, should Google want to collaborate with NASA on anything, they definitely have strong connections and a good idea of what kinds of stuff NASA is doing.
Google and NASA are both very close to each other, in Mountain View, CA (which is where I live, less than 2 miles from both of them). Google is currently in the offices built by Silicon Graphics, which is a pretty nice place by Silicon Valley standards. Most companies around here are in nondescript office parks. The Google/SGI building is large, uniquely designed, and colorful.
Google is North of Shoreline Blvd, South of Shoreline Blvd is Moffet Field. It used to be a Navy facility, and its most prominent feature is the huge blimp hangar that you've probably seen if you've ever flown into the Bay Area during the day. (Microsoft's facility is actually between the two, just across the Stevens Creek trail from Moffet. This used to be their WebTV facility).
Moffett has been scaling down operations for quite a while. They already have a lot of space that is leased out to private companies. Also, they just shut down the nation's (world's?) largest wind tunnel a year or two ago.. There has been a lot of talk in the local papers about re-using that land for something more productive (that, and about cleaning up the toxic chemicals on the site and lead paint on the huge blimp hangar).
Although there is a ton of open commercial real estate in silicon valley, most of it consists of those small non-descript office parks I mentioned before. So, apparently Google has been looking for a huge space to expand the business. Since there is practically no large space available (and thus the ridiculously high housing prices), the Moffett facility was one of few options.
So, I think this is a whole lot more about precious real estate than it is about any technology cooperation, as the articles claimed.
That could be the cover to the "Google's Guide to the Galaxy" ;-)
Just enter the part of the universe you'd like to search and click "I Feel Lucky!"
"Love is like pi - natural, irrational, and very important." (Lisa Hoffman)
has anyone ever taken a bong hit ont he moon? i want to!
With all the Google stories lately, there's always the inevitable comment: "Why do we LOVE Google and HATE Microsoft?" This is an example why. They do cool things, work on ideas beneficial to the public and they're collaborating with an agency that's respected by the American public.
With that said, I'm trying to understand Google's roll in this. I don't think it's completely selfless. Considering how much data NASA has to process, I think Google's tools fit right in (since they, too, have so much data they have to process). One tool that I read about long ago that aids them is the GoogleFS.
Other ways that this could potentially be beneficial is the other tools that may need to be built that are parallel with Google's goals (more data management). And I'm guessing that they also see this as a way of contributing towards a dying space program.
"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." - Martin Luther King, Jr.
Google will be able to help NASA get the overwhelming amount of information they have on their web sites and collaborative sites in order to make it easier to find things. There is a lot of great information out there but it's so hard to what's there unless you already have something specific in mind.
3 big reasons Google partners with NASA. 1: real estate Google wants to build its own corporate offices + help provide its employees with affordable discounted housing. Anoter way to retain employess. Google wants to be a college campus - putting lots of brilliant people close to each other creates a better chance of great ideas or complimentary ideas finding each other Work, Play and Live in the same square mile and you likely to spark a great idea. Eventually they should rename the area from Moffet Field to Geek City 2: Content, Content, Content What does Google want more than anything!? From scanning books to spidering the web faster everyday. Who else can organize NASA's trillions of Terrabytes of data other than Google? 3: Distributed computing Google has it, NASA needs it.
It’s supposed to read “Google and NSA to Collaborate on Technology.”
Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiari?
Think of what Google is making possible that the FBI could not. Google Mail (unlimited storage on THIER servers of personal/private/business emails), Google Earth + NASA Satellite mapping technology, Satellites and othere data, Project Gizmo (VOIP - Storable Voice Conversatons with later ability to search and parse spoken language) and a Search Engine thats capable of correlating all of this information together into a single VAST Intellectual Property/trending/analysis/etc/etc.
Big Brother is not watching you, Google is. And it may be to the highest bidder.
All your base are belong to Google.
Well, you have gotta understand that Google and NASA work on entirely different types of data:
Google = Web pages/multi-media content that is hyperlinked
NASA = Large relational tables storing petabytes of data from sensors and telescopic readings...
The techniques for mining are different in both cases.. when they talk about "Bio/Nano" it refers to entirely new domain.. Its not as easy as plug-n-play with different domains. Agreed, Google has mastered the algorithms for ranking and extracting data from Web-pages but mining data out of relational streams of data is entirely a different ball game.
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Just point the Google Mini at your content, add a search box to your site and you're set. It's that simple to make your public website or intranet as easy to search as Google.com. View an online product tour.
omfg.
... you guessed it, an inflatable exercise ball. Pardon me while I regain my composure and stop laughing :)
I work for google, and you just caused me to fall off of
Let's google for "+houston +problem" ...
I think what Google has to offer is not necessarily its current search technologies, but rather a wealth of experience dealing with large amounts of data and, most importantly, a group of brilliant, creative engineers who have been working well with each other for years. The blurb from the article doesn't say that Nasa needs AdWords or PageRank. It says that Nasa wants to sell some space and outsource some large-scale, high-data flow engineering. I'd say Google is pretty damn good at that.
Did you see the pool? They flipped the bitch!