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NASA Plans App Store For Scientists

Posted by samzenpus on from the top-rated-science-section dept.

gManZboy writes "The space agency is widely known as a cloud computing success story in the government for its Nebula cloud computing platform. Now NASA will develop an app store for its scientists. The NASA CIO says it's about getting the science job done."

36 comments

  1. Re:Excellent post! by Synerg1y · · Score: 1

    still waiting for that space shuttle...

  2. Link inside the article by Synerg1y · · Score: 2

    Has some interesting information

    http://www.informationweek.com/news/government/cloud-saas/231901731?itc=edit_in_body_cross

    Turns out Nasa isn't the only one looking to go to cloud computing: main implication: all systems are penetrable and now all the data will be in one place rather than scattered across agencies. They'll prolly invent cyber m16s soon though to guard it and stuff, so it's ok right?

    1. Re:Link inside the article by ackthpt · · Score: 1

      Has some interesting information

      http://www.informationweek.com/news/government/cloud-saas/231901731?itc=edit_in_body_cross

      Turns out Nasa isn't the only one looking to go to cloud computing: main implication: all systems are penetrable and now all the data will be in one place rather than scattered across agencies. They'll prolly invent cyber m16s soon though to guard it and stuff, so it's ok right?

      How about some simple gatekeeping security? In my experience security fails when it becomes too complicated to administer properly or navigate by users - that's when you find all those little post it notes laying around and gaps a 10 year-old could exploit.

      --

      A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
    2. Re:Link inside the article by justforgetme · · Score: 1

      Turns out Nasa isn't the only one looking to go to cloud computing

      good!

      --
      -- no sig today
  3. Cake will be served? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    The NASA CIO says it's about getting the science job done

    1. Re:Cake will be served? by squidflakes · · Score: 2

      Only for the people who are still alive.

  4. App Store? NASA better prepare their lawyers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    About to be sued by Apple in 5, 4, 3...

  5. About to be sued by Apple? by Moheeheeko · · Score: 1

    There's an app for that.

    1. Re:About to be sued by Apple? by justforgetme · · Score: 1

      iSuJu?

      That's the name of my girlfriend!

      --
      -- no sig today
  6. 1980 called, they have your desktop program ready by MonkeySpaceCapsule · · Score: 1

    From the article:
              "We are looking at how we can virtualize the desktop so you can gain access to your resources from any device, anyplace, anywhere," Gardner said.
    So VNC, NXMachine, or X11 forwarding through a highly compressed pipe. It will be hard to beat that software as it's been improved by decades of work (and started when the pipes were even smaller). I'm guessing they would get more bang out of just finding out how to increase the bandwidth (such as twisting signals, etc.)

  7. Scientic Linux by bobaferret · · Score: 1

    Seems like a job for Scientific Linux. Admittedly it is put together by particle physicists as opposed to cosmologists but I'm sure they generally like to do a lot of the same things.

    1. Re:Scientic Linux by SteveFoerster · · Score: 2

      From the Scientific Linux main page:

      SL is a Linux release put together by Fermilab, CERN, and various other labs and universities around the world. Its primary purpose is to reduce duplicated effort of the labs, and to have a common install base for the various experimenters.

      The base SL distribution is basically Enterprise Linux, recompiled from source.

      Our main goal for the base distribution is to have everything compatible with Enterprise, with only a few minor additions or changes. Examples of items that were added are Alpine, and OpenAFS.

      Our secondary goal is to allow easy customization for a site, without disturbing the Scientific Linux base. The various labs are able to add their own modifications to their own site areas. By the magic of scripts, and the anaconda installer, each site is to be able to create their own distributions with minimal effort. Or, if a user wishes, they can simply install the base SL release.

      --
      Space game using normal deck of cards: http://BattleCards.org
  8. Apple supports apps stores for organization by perpenso · · Score: 2

    About to be sued by Apple in 5, 4, 3...

    Actually, Apple allows enterprise developers to offer internal app stores for their users. Given that the summary says "app store for its scientists" there may be no conflict here. NASA would only be prohibited from offering an iOS App Store to the public in general. Of course why would they bother with an app store for the public when they could simply have their free iOS apps appear on the Apple App Store at no cost to NASA?

    1. Re:Apple supports apps stores for organization by Fnord666 · · Score: 2

      Of course why would they bother with an app store for the public when they could simply have their free iOS apps appear on the Apple App Store at no cost to NASA?

      Because what can and can't be made available then becomes subject to the whims of Apple?

      --
      'The tyrant will always find pretext for his tyranny.' - Aesop's Fables
    2. Re:Apple supports apps stores for organization by perpenso · · Score: 1

      Of course why would they bother with an app store for the public when they could simply have their free iOS apps appear on the Apple App Store at no cost to NASA?

      Because what can and can't be made available then becomes subject to the whims of Apple?

      "Whims" is a very big mischaracterization.

    3. Re:Apple supports apps stores for organization by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The 10s of thousands of apps on the app store says it's not to hard to satisfy Apple's whims. Whims being disinformation about well defined policies.

      And most of the policies would not impede NASA. The only things I can think of relate to licensing such as open source licenses.

    4. Re:Apple supports apps stores for organization by jc79 · · Score: 1

      This story has nothing to do with iOS apps or any Apple platform. It is about NASA's Nebula cloud services and making them easily available internally through a single "cloud storefront". The PR folk knew if they put the magic words "app store" in the story then it would get read. TFA also mentions the Android Market just two words after App Store, right there in the standfirst at the top of the page.

    5. Re:Apple supports apps stores for organization by perpenso · · Score: 1

      This story has nothing to do with iOS apps or any Apple platform.

      However the post I responded do did bring up Apple.

    6. Re:Apple supports apps stores for organization by jc79 · · Score: 1

      Yup, sorry. Should have replied to them, not you.

  9. Cloud Computing? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I would have thought NOAA or at least NWS would be better known for cloud computing than NASA. heh heh heh

    1. Re:Cloud Computing? by ISoldat53 · · Score: 1

      NASA has looked at clouds from both sides now.

  10. The first App! by erroneus · · Score: 1

    NASA's first app in the store will be an imperial to metric conversion tool.

    1. Re:The first App! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      NASA's first app in the store will be an imperial to metric conversion tool.

      NO! It will be a metric to imperial conversion tool.

    2. Re:The first App! by robot256 · · Score: 2

      NASA's first app in the store will be an imperial to metric conversion tool.

      NO! It will be a metric to imperial conversion tool.

      ^^^ This. The scientists all work in metric, it is just the engineers that do half and half.

  11. Placement fail by Wolfling1 · · Score: 2

    After the previous thread listed on the homepage, it is a courageous Slashdot that uses the term 'app store' for anything not owned by Apple.

  12. Sad state of affairs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Real scientists should not need an app store, just sayin'

    1. Re:Sad state of affairs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      yeah... real scientists still write good old fortran 77 code... full of common blocks...

  13. Busted O-Rings? by wideBlueSkies · · Score: 1

    There's an app for that.

    --
    Huh?
  14. NASA App Store by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    An App Store from NASA??? How many times do we get to pay these "Apps" ???

  15. Fingers Crossed by stms · · Score: 2

    I hope they have a fart app.

    1. Re:Fingers Crossed by Nerdfest · · Score: 1

      "The Farticle Accelerator"

  16. Apple App Store and FOSS compatible by perpenso · · Score: 1

    The 10s of thousands of apps on the app store says it's not to hard to satisfy Apple's whims. Whims being disinformation about well defined policies. And most of the policies would not impede NASA. The only things I can think of relate to licensing such as open source licenses.

    I don't believe Apple has any problem with FOSS apps being on the App Store. The developers are free to provide users with their source code.

  17. From launching shuttles to this? by syousef · · Score: 1

    Now you're running an app store? For frack sake people, you've had apps available for download for a long time. Have you got money in the budget for this idiocy? Which mission did you cut to get the funds for this comedy routine?

    --
    These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
    1. Re:From launching shuttles to this? by jc79 · · Score: 1

      There's nothing like actually reading the friendly article is there?

      NASA Plans Cloud Marketplace For Scientists
      Cloud services suite to expand with platform as a service, data as a service, and a new cloud computing storefront likened to Apple's AppStore and Google's Android Market.

      By J. Nicholas Hoover InformationWeek
      November 03, 2011 02:55 PM

      NASA, already among the government leaders in cloud computing, plans to offer a cloud storefront where scientists will be able to determine their computing needs and access cloud services from a central location.

      So no, they're not running an app store.

  18. Good state of affairs by dbIII · · Score: 1

    Actually with things like NASA's PBS (portable batch system) being used as nothing but a bait and switch by the company that was supposed to distribute it for free I'd say it is a very good thing NASA are now doing their own distribution now.
    By the way, I know there is now an alternative called Torque for that example. I'm really just telling you why it was necessary for Torque to be developed in the first place. It wasn't just about being able to get hold of free software, it's was also about getting hold of software known to work in a given situation instead of an unknown closed source application produced by people that are being dishonest about what you can download in the first place.