by Angela Guess
Emily Lakdawalla recently wrote in Planetary.org, “One of the great things about NASA is that all the data returned from all of the missions all over the solar system belong to you, the public. A good chunk of what I write about at this blog depends upon NASA’s public data archives, the Planetary Data System, or PDS. By sharing all of the data with the world, NASA enables amateurs and professionals alike to make the most of every precious data bit returned from space.”
She continues, “It’s not just the raw bits that NASA makes available, either. This morning, while responding to a NASA solicitation requesting community input to the future of the Planetary Data System, I found a summary of NASA’s mandate to share the results of robotic exploration with the public that made me realize how broad NASA’s activities really are. I’m not sure that all of you readers share my enthusiasm for the nitty gritty details of the infrastructure of NASA, but I think it’s important to recognize the organizations that make it possible for us to enjoy what NASA does, and I thought at least a few of you might enjoy learning more about these efforts.”
Lakdawalla goes on, “The solicitation explained that the Planetary Data System is just one of four NASA-funded organizations that disseminate the fruits of our robotic planetary exploration, and I’d never looked at the four organizations as part of a single effort before. The other three organizations provide access to returned samples; provide a clearinghouse for data tracking all the wandering bodies in our solar system; and provide the base maps on which we plot all of our pretty science.”