4 ms·

Nasa Open Datasets

208 points by squiggy22 11y ago

IanCal 11y ago
First off, awesome, I'm always looking for new datasets. So these complaints are fairly small, but currently stopping me from doing some things: I can't see more than two items on this page: https://data.nasa.gov/data?&search=&type=datasets https://data.nasa.gov/data?&search=&type=datasets I'm just after a big list of datasets so I can skim through and find ones I'm intrigued by. Here's a screenshot: http://i.imgur.com/TtP630G.jpg http://i.imgur.com/TtP630G.jpg (latest Chrome, mac) The featured dataset links to a 404 page: https://open.nasa.gov/nasadatanauts/ https://open.nasa.gov/nasadatanauts/ Again, great to see the data out. Edit - scratch the listing problem, it seems to be one of my extensions, either readability or pushbullet, breaking the site.
- rossj 11y ago
  It is great to see them releasing data, but I'm surprised they went with something based on Socrata given there are other OSS products out there. I can't imagine how much they paid - I guess that won't be in the data catalog anywhere :(
  - mistermann 11y ago
    Could you name some of the alternatives to Socrata, I really like what it does and its interface but would prefer something free.
    - rossj 11y ago
      There's http://ckan.org http://ckan.org (disclaimer, I work with this) and http://dataverse.org http://dataverse.org if you're more academically minded. There are others, but hard to judge any claims of open-sourceness without access to source code.
toni 11y ago
If you are purely looking for some beautiful datasets, checkout NASA's Datacasting website[1]. They have a large RSS feed directory[2] with a lot of data on earth science. They even built their own RSS feed reader[3][4] to download and filter the data. And I think everything is already geo-tagged. [1] http://datacasting.jpl.nasa.gov/ http://datacasting.jpl.nasa.gov/ [2] http://datacasting.jpl.nasa.gov/feed_directory/ http://datacasting.jpl.nasa.gov/feed_directory/ [3] http://datacasting.jpl.nasa.gov/download/ http://datacasting.jpl.nasa.gov/download/ [4] http://sourceforge.net/projects/datacasting/ http://sourceforge.net/projects/datacasting/
IndianAstronaut 11y ago
Wow, this is hugely improved. Used to be lots of scattered files everywhere with poor access and no consistency.
rocky1138 11y ago
http://www.skywatch.co/ http://www.skywatch.co/ SkyWatch is doing something similar. If you're into this sort of thing, check them out.
skram 11y ago
Also check out https://data.nasa.gov/data?category=&search=&type=datasets https://data.nasa.gov/data?category=&search=&type=datasets (linked to from open.nasa.gov) which all have consistent APIs -- so you can write code once and re-use it as opposed to having to write a new API wrapper for each disparate data set Disclosure: I work for the company that helps run data.nasa.gov
- arama471 11y ago
  Must be fun!
- vijayr 11y ago
  Know of any interesting examples/fun projects where this data is used?
mturmon 11y ago
It will be interesting to see how much uptake such a top-level index gets. The search capability (e.g., https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10264811 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10264811) returns so many results for typical naive queries ("temperature" returns 8300), that it's impossible to sift through them. They seem to be un-curated, so a niche product with marginal calibration gets equal play to flagship products with thousands of users. People like me who use lots of this data every day have sat in panels and workshops and mused whether a searchable top-level index would be useful, because this is not how scientists work. They ask their friends which sources are best for their use, e.g., which have the right coverage and sampling in space, time, and wavelength. And they settle into something, and maybe make a big shift to a new product when it comes online. But: something like this index could be helpful, to citizens, decision-makers (e.g., tree canopy depth maps for fighting forest fires), and to out-of-discipline scientists ("what if I brought in NASA sea surface temperature to my analysis of beach restaurant revenue fluctuations?"). For CO2, here's an example (https://co2.jpl.nasa.gov https://co2.jpl.nasa.gov) which gives 5 simple use cases and sketches why you'd choose one over the other.
rmason 11y ago
In addition to being a beautiful design I like how NASA is making use of personas. As I've discovered in working with open data it isn't just developers who are interested. In Michigan mappers, citizen activists and journalists are drawn to it in equal numbers with developers. Giving different views that allow them to get what they're looking for is very powerful.

208 points by squiggy22 11y ago

First off, awesome, I'm always looking for new datasets. So these complaints are fairly small, but currently stopping me from doing some things: I can't see more than two items on this page: https://data.nasa.gov/data?&search=&type=datasets https://data.nasa.gov/data?&search=&type=datasets I'm just after a big list of datasets so I can skim through and find ones I'm intrigued by. Here's a screenshot: http://i.imgur.com/TtP630G.jpg http://i.imgur.com/TtP630G.jpg (latest Chrome, mac) The featured dataset links to a 404 page: https://open.nasa.gov/nasadatanauts/ https://open.nasa.gov/nasadatanauts/ Again, great to see the data out. Edit - scratch the listing problem, it seems to be one of my extensions, either readability or pushbullet, breaking the site.

rossj 11y ago
It is great to see them releasing data, but I'm surprised they went with something based on Socrata given there are other OSS products out there. I can't imagine how much they paid - I guess that won't be in the data catalog anywhere :(
- mistermann 11y ago
  Could you name some of the alternatives to Socrata, I really like what it does and its interface but would prefer something free.
  - rossj 11y ago
    There's http://ckan.org http://ckan.org (disclaimer, I work with this) and http://dataverse.org http://dataverse.org if you're more academically minded. There are others, but hard to judge any claims of open-sourceness without access to source code.

toni 11y ago

If you are purely looking for some beautiful datasets, checkout NASA's Datacasting website[1]. They have a large RSS feed directory[2] with a lot of data on earth science. They even built their own RSS feed reader[3][4] to download and filter the data. And I think everything is already geo-tagged. [1] http://datacasting.jpl.nasa.gov/ http://datacasting.jpl.nasa.gov/ [2] http://datacasting.jpl.nasa.gov/feed_directory/ http://datacasting.jpl.nasa.gov/feed_directory/ [3] http://datacasting.jpl.nasa.gov/download/ http://datacasting.jpl.nasa.gov/download/ [4] http://sourceforge.net/projects/datacasting/ http://sourceforge.net/projects/datacasting/

IndianAstronaut 11y ago

Wow, this is hugely improved. Used to be lots of scattered files everywhere with poor access and no consistency.

rocky1138 11y ago

http://www.skywatch.co/ http://www.skywatch.co/ SkyWatch is doing something similar. If you're into this sort of thing, check them out.

skram 11y ago

Also check out https://data.nasa.gov/data?category=&search=&type=datasets https://data.nasa.gov/data?category=&search=&type=datasets (linked to from open.nasa.gov) which all have consistent APIs -- so you can write code once and re-use it as opposed to having to write a new API wrapper for each disparate data set Disclosure: I work for the company that helps run data.nasa.gov

arama471 11y ago
Must be fun!
vijayr 11y ago
Know of any interesting examples/fun projects where this data is used?

mturmon 11y ago

It will be interesting to see how much uptake such a top-level index gets. The search capability (e.g., https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10264811 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10264811) returns so many results for typical naive queries ("temperature" returns 8300), that it's impossible to sift through them. They seem to be un-curated, so a niche product with marginal calibration gets equal play to flagship products with thousands of users. People like me who use lots of this data every day have sat in panels and workshops and mused whether a searchable top-level index would be useful, because this is not how scientists work. They ask their friends which sources are best for their use, e.g., which have the right coverage and sampling in space, time, and wavelength. And they settle into something, and maybe make a big shift to a new product when it comes online. But: something like this index could be helpful, to citizens, decision-makers (e.g., tree canopy depth maps for fighting forest fires), and to out-of-discipline scientists ("what if I brought in NASA sea surface temperature to my analysis of beach restaurant revenue fluctuations?"). For CO2, here's an example (https://co2.jpl.nasa.gov https://co2.jpl.nasa.gov) which gives 5 simple use cases and sketches why you'd choose one over the other.

rmason 11y ago

In addition to being a beautiful design I like how NASA is making use of personas. As I've discovered in working with open data it isn't just developers who are interested. In Michigan mappers, citizen activists and journalists are drawn to it in equal numbers with developers. Giving different views that allow them to get what they're looking for is very powerful.