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May 27, 2009
Recently, NASA has been processing some very large sets of high-resolution photos and various data it
gathered from Mars and the moon into a new Microsoft format for viewing them in the software giant's
WorldWide Telescope initiative.
However, NASA also plans to publicly release as open-source software the tools it is currently developing to make
the file format conversion, all without the help of Microsoft.
Such a technological "balancing act" is among the details revealed in a federal Space Act Agreement
establishing the terms of a collaboration announced by NASA and Microsoft in March.
The text of the agreement wasn't disclosed at the time, but NASA has now released the documents in
response to a request made by TechFlash under the federal Freedom of Information Act.
Google CEO Eric Schmidt, whose company uses NASA images in Google Earth, Google Sky and other programs,
called on the agency to focus on open and collaborative technologies back in November 2008.
Overall, it would appear that NASA would like to seek a middle ground in its Microsoft agreement,
based on the newly disclosed contract verbiage. The details are laid out in an "umbrella" agreement and a
related contract, known as an "annex".
The text will certainly get a much closer look from people worried about governments tethering themselves
too tightly to Microsoft's technologies. The agreement is non-exclusive, leaving the door open for NASA to
make similar conversions to formats used by alternative space-viewing programs.
But data formats have historically been a source of conflict between Microsoft and open-source
advocates concerned about government agencies leaning too heavily on proprietary approaches, making them
de facto standards.
Additionally, the documents focus on WorldWide Telescope, an online program launched publicly by Microsoft
in September 2008. The program pulls together images from across space, letting people zoom around the
universe on their computer screens.
Announced two months ago, the NASA-Microsoft initiative promises to add about 100 or so terabytes of new
data to the program, equal to 20,000 DVDs the company said at the time.
Microsoft's WorldWide Telescope was initially available only as a Windows program, but the software giant
has since released a preview of a WorldWide Telescope Web client for Intel-based Macs, using Microsoft's
Silverlight technology.
The technology at the center of Microsoft's NASA agreement is called TOAST, which is short for Tessellated
Octahedral Adaptive Subdivision Transform, a technique and format developed by Microsoft to display flat
images (such as those from telescopes) on representations of spherical objects (such as planets and moons)
on a computer screen.
It's one of the key technological underpinnings of the WorldWide Telescope's well-regarded on-screen
interface.
Microsoft Research offers WorldWide Telescope as a free educational and scientific resource, but
Microsoft's business groups compete commercially with Google and other companies to provide images, maps
and digital models of the natural environment.
Source: The NASA.
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