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.

Comments

Moffett

[BWJones]

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.

Is Google the New Bell Labs?

[rlp]

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.

Google expandig out of it's domain...why?

[Bitsy Boffin]

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.