ESA Highlights Online Games as Key Future Technology

"Video gaming has become one of the globe's most popular pastimes. Fans say games are often educational, their detractors answer they are anything but. Might ESA have something to learn from gaming? A new Agency study says the answer is yes. It comes from ESA's Technology Observatory, which is tasked with scanning non-space sectors to look for developments with potential for spin-in or joint research. The study, Online Game Technology for Space Education and System Analysis, looks at potential applications of different online game-playing technologies from the simplest content-oriented games through to Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) virtual worlds."

In line with the Obama administration's efforts to establish an open and transparent government, one of Nebula's goals is to create a secure gateway through which NASA can share select data sets with outside researchers and the American public while at the same time, limit access to it's highly-secured internal networks.

One of the projects Nebula has been very excited to support enables the public to view and explore the surfaces of the Moon and Mars in unprecedented resolution in both Google Earth and Microsoft World Wide Telescope. The NASA team responsible for these projects leveraged Nebula to perform sophisticated large-scale image processing and hosting of hundreds of thousands of high-resolution images and over 100 terabytes of data. This project involved sophisticated 3D image modeling using 2D image tiles, enabling the public to explore the surfaces of these celestial bodies in realistic, 3D worlds.

NASA ISS On-Orbit Status 5 October 2009

"Gennady reconfigured an A31p laptop (#1157) by equipping it with the HDD (Hard Disk Drive) of the Russian RS1 laptop (#1145), supported by ground specialist tagup."

NASA ISS On-Orbit Status 4 October 2009

"Maxim Suraev performed the periodic update of the AntiVirus program in the Russian VKS auxiliary laptops (RSS2, RSK1, RSE1, RSE2) from a new uplinked program copy on the RSS1 laptop, first scanning the latter, then transferring the database by flash-card to the other computers and scanning them one by one."

NASA ISS On-Orbit Status 2 October 2009

"CDR Padalka took Guy Laliberte on a one-hour orientation/briefing tour of the ISS, setting him up for his nine-day stay on board. Preparations included installing the SFP’s HDD (Hard Disk Drive) in the RSK2 laptop for his use. [Guy’s introduction covered SM windows 7 & 8 for Earth photo/video ops, NIKON D3X & SONY Z7 camera stowage locations & use, location for Guy’s daily VHF1 conferences, the SFP-PCG & SFP-ICG experiment container setup, etc.]"