IT Talk

January - March 2012 Volume 2 • Issue 1

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

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IT Talk

Jan - Mar 2012 Volume 2 • Issue 1

Office of the CIO

NASA Headquarters

300 E Street, SW

Washington, D.C. 20546

Chief Information Officer

Linda Y. Cureton

OCIO Chief of Staff

John Hopkins

Editor and Publication Manager

Eldora Valentine

Graphic and Web Design

Michael Porterfield

IT Talk is an official publication of the 

Office of the Chief Information Officer 

of the National Aeronautics and 

Space Administration, Headquarters, 

Washington, D.C. It is published 

by the OCIO office for all NASA 

employees and external audiences.

For distribution questions or to 

suggest a story idea, e-mail:

john.hopkins@nasa.gov or

eldora.valentine-1@nasa.gov

To read IT Talk online visit:

nasa.gov/offices/ocio/ittalk

For more info on the OCIO: v www.nasa.gov/ocio v insidenasa.nasa.gov/ocio

 (Internal NASA network only) v www.nasa.gov/open/

facebook.com/NASAcio

 twitter.com/NASAcio

www.nasa.gov

36

94

10

Message

from the CIO

NASA’s Federal

PIV Credential 

Teams Up with 

Google Apps

Going the

Extra Mile

Telework

Exchange

Town Hall

Liquid Galaxy

In this Issue
Message

from

the CIO

By Linda Cureton

The new year always starts with a ritual—an annual 

attempt to start afresh and turn over a new leaf. One 

of the best resolutions comes in an advertisement 

from Symantec, the IT security company, where 

they start the ad by saying that 2012 is the end 

of the Mayan calendar and therefore marks the 

end of the world. Their resolution is “Resolution 

2012—The world is not going to end in 2012.” 

Wow, that is a huge load off my mind. This year, 

just like all the rest, I have some proposed key 

goals. Here are my 2012 New Year’s resolutions: 

1. Ensure that large volumes of data are 

transmitted quickly and securely.

2. Do more collaboration with industry.

3. Think of innovative ways to use 

commercial off-the-shelf technology. 

4. Work harder in communicating the value of IT. We’ve 

been forced to run a marathon at a sprinter’s pace.

5. Embrace change.

6. Think past the hype. How can cloud, mobile, 

and consumer technologies help NASA?

7. Keep an open mind about emerging technologies.

8. Tweet and blog more.

9. Be all about the “G” word. In other words, promote 

professional, organizational, and personal growth.

10. Stop worrying about what I cannot 

control (e.g., the economy).

As we forge ahead into 2012, I would like to 

recognize some key IT accomplishments. NASA 

recently partnered with Google Apps on a new pilot 

program. NASA users can connect to Google Apps 

for Government using an existing NASA work ID, 

which also functions as a smart card in the card 

reader of compatible computers. The card was 

created as a common identification standard for 

Federal employees and contractors to increase 

security and reduce opportunities for identify fraud. 

You can read more about the pilot on page 6. 

Also, our work continues with strengthening our IT 

operations and achieving my vision to have the best 

IT organization in the Federal Government. The last 

year produced some hefty IT challenges, including 

a transition to NASA’s IT Infrastructure Integration 

Program (I3P). I3P is transforming NASA’s IT service 

delivery from Center-based to Agency-based, resulting 

in IT service consistency and management, as well 

as enhanced IT security for our customers. We 

continue to move ahead in this direction. An update 

on the program is available in this latest issue. 

No New Year’s celebration would be complete without 

thanking the people who worked very hard on last 

year’s resolutions. They are a key component to 

the success of the IT program at NASA. Thank you. 

I’m very proud of our team. I have many hopes and 

dreams for our IT community in 2012. In the coming 

months, I look forward to sharing my vision with 

you and expanding our technology at NASA. v

NASA OCIO IT Talk January-March 2012 3
Telework Exchange Town Hall

By Tony Facca, Emerging Technology and Desktop Standards (ETADS) Manager

Recently, NASA was represented 

at the 2011 Telework Exchange 

Town Hall meeting in Washington, 

DC, by Mr. Tony Facca of NASA’s 

Emerging Technology and 

Desktop Standards (ETADS). The 

Telework Exchange is “a publicprivate partnership focused 

on demonstrating the tangible 

value of telework and serving 

the emerging educational and 

communication requirements 

of the Federal teleworker 

community.” ETADS, chartered 

with defining the Agency’s 

Desktop Computing Standards, 

was asked to give a presentation 

based on previous participation 

in Telework Exchange activities.

The Town Hall had special 

significance given the continued 

consumerization of information 

technology (IT), the explosive 

growth of mobility solutions, and 

President Obama’s signing into law 

of the Telework Enhancement Act 

of 2010. While at the Town Hall, 

Mr. Facca discussed how telework 

has enhanced collaboration 

across a geographically dispersed 

Agency and among global partners 

and how telework has created 

an environment that no longer 

restricts innovation to 8 a.m.–5 

p.m., Monday through Friday. Mr. 

Facca described how technologies 

that fuel telework are directly 

transferable to the flight line, to 

the test cell, and to continuity of 

operation plans (COOP). Indeed, 

COOP was a recurring theme as 

many in attendance recounted 

how implementing telework 

strategies enabled the Federal 

Government to remain operational 

during the Washington, DC, 

“Snowmageddon” of winter 2010. 

Other agencies presenting 

included the National Institute 

of Standards and Technology 

(NIST), which discussed practices 

for secure telework experiences 

and technology leaders including 

Microsoft, Intel, Citrix, and Cisco, 

who offer innovative approaches 

to supporting telework initiatives. 

The Department of Defense (DOD) 

also participated and recounted 

how implementing a teleworking 

policy helped stem an employee 

exodus resulting from its Base 

Realignment and Closing (BRAC) 

initiative. The United States Patent 

and Trade Office was recognized 

as a trailblazing authority for its 

vast adoption of telework and 

its measurable results, including 

significant savings to the agency.

More information about the 

Telework Exchange can 

be found at http://www.

teleworkexchange.com/.

More information about 

NASA’s ETADS can be found 

at https://etads.nasa.gov/. v

4 www.nasa.gov
Freudinger Named CIO at Dryden

Lawrence C. Freudinger has assumed the role 

of Chief Information Officer (CIO) at Dryden 

Flight Research Center. Freudinger’s prior 

position at Dryden in the Mission Information 

and Test Systems Directorate focused on 

advanced test technology development and 

network access to globally deployed airborne 

instrument payloads. In that role, he led a team 

pioneering highly specialized IT systems that 

changed the way NASA’s airborne science 

program delivered services to its customers.

In addition to being the CIO, Mr. Freudinger 

also serves as Chief Technology Officer 

(CTO)-IT and supervises the Mission 

Information Branch at Dryden.

Mr. Freudinger began his NASA career in 1986 

supporting research and testing in aeronautics. 

He has a bachelor of science degree in 

astronautical engineering from University of 

Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a master 

of science degree in mechanical engineering 

from the University of Cincinnati. He is a coinventor of patented open-source middleware 

designed for network-distributed testing and 

was the Technical Program Chairman for the 

2003 International Telemetering Conference. He 

was a member of the 2009 Cyberinfrastructure 

Task Force contributing to planning efforts for 

an Aeronautics Research, Development, Test, 

and Evaluation (RDT&E) national infrastructure. 

He authored or co-authored more than 30 

publications and is a recipient of the NASA 

Exceptional Engineering Achievement Medal. v

NASA Names New CTO For IT

Dr. Sasi Kumar Pillay is the new NASA Chief 

Technology Officer for IT. Prior to his new role,

Dr. Pillay served as the Chief Information Officer at 

the National Aeronautics and Space Administration 

(NASA) John H. Glenn Research Center at Lewis 

Field in Cleveland, Ohio. He was responsible 

for advocating, managing, and implementing 

information technology investments and 

infrastructure at Glenn. Dr. Pillay had a broad scope 

of responsibility, including managing administrative 

telecommunications, desktop computing, and 

computer graphics and visualization; computer 

modeling and simulation; and high-end computing 

and networking. Under his leadership, Glenn 

served as the NASA lead for developing agencywide standards and architecture for desktop 

systems and servers, with a focus on security, 

interoperability and collaboration. Dr. Pillay also 

served on the center's Strategic Management 

Council and the Operations Management Council.

He received a Bachelor of Science in 

Mechanical Engineering from Pennsylvania 

State University, as well as Master of 

Science and Doctor of Philosophy degrees 

in Computer Engineering from Case Western 

Reserve University. He also holds a Master's 

degree in Management of Technology from 

the Sloan School of Management at the 

Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Dr. Pillay is the recipient of NASA's 

Exceptional Service Medal and the 

Outstanding Leadership Medal. He is also 

the recipient of the Presidential Rank Award 

recognizing him as a meritorious executive 

in the U.S. Federal Government. He has 

written approximately 20 papers on pattern 

recognition and medical diagnostic systems.

Humphries Named CIO At Glenn

William R. (Randy) Humphries, Jr. has been 

named the Chief Information Officer at the 

National Aeronautics and Space Administration's 

(NASA) Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio.

He is responsible for advocating, managing, 

and implementing information technology 

investments and infrastructure at Glenn. Mr. 

Humphries has a broad scope of responsibility, 

including managing administrative 

telecommunications, desktop computing, and 

computer graphics and visualization; computer 

modeling and simulation; and high-end 

computing and networking. He also serves on 

the center's Strategic Management Council 

and the Operations Management Council. 

Prior to this appointment, Humphries served 

as Deputy Director for Glenn's Space Flight 

Systems since 2006. In this position, he 

was responsible for center-level planning, 

organizing, and directing of activities required 

to accomplish the directorate’s responsibility 

to manage, conceptualize, develop, and 

integrate flight and ground systems in support 

of NASA’s exploration and science objectives. 

Before coming to Glenn, Humphries served as 

manager, Exploration and Space Operations at 

NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC). 

Humphries joined NASA in 1991 working 

instrumentation on the Space Station 

Freedom program. He has held positions 

of increasing responsibility including lead 

instrumentation engineer for the space 

shuttle main engine at MSFC, subsystem 

manager for the solid rocket booster project 

at the NASA Kennedy Space Center, manager 

for space shuttle propulsion upgrades and 

deputy director of the Program Development 

Directorate at NASA Stennis Space Center. 

During his career, Humphries has demonstrated 

exceptional skills in leading people, forming 

internal and external collaborations, and 

using keen business insight. Key among his 

accomplishments is successfully managing the 

implementation of the $3 billion Space Shuttle 

Safety Upgrade Program, leading the onschedule launch of the $700 million Agency Pluto 

mission, and assembling a new organization at 

Marshall to support ISS and space exploration. 

Humphries received his bachelor's degree in 

electrical and computer engineering from the 

University of Alabama in Huntsville in 1982. 

Humphries' awards include NASA's 

Outstanding Leadership Medal and the 

prestigious NASA Silver Snoopy Award.
NASA recently began a pilot 

program using Google Apps, a 

suite of applications that brings 

services such as Google Docs, 

Images and Videos, Sites, 

Groups, Calendar, and Contacts 

together to help NASA workers 

in today’s NASA business and 

engineering environment. NASA 

IT Labs, a part of the Office of 

the Chief Information Officer 

(CIO), sponsored the pilot to 

meet the growing demand from 

workers to access resources 

anywhere on any device.

About 600 IT staff from 11 

NASA Centers and facilities are 

participating in the pilot by using 

existing NASA identities and 

credentials. Cost savings and 

information protection are realized 

by accessing cloud computing. 

Cloud computing refers to 

resources and applications that 

are available on the Internet from 

nearly any Internet-connected 

device. During this pilot, only 

nonsensitive NASA data are 

being placed in the cloud.

Under the pilot, NASA workers 

can connect to Google Apps for 

Government using their existing 

NASA work ID. Through integration 

between Google Apps, NASA 

Access Launchpad, and the NASA 

Consolidated Active Directory 

(NCAD), workers may use their 

existing NASA badge, one-timepassword token, simplified signon, or username and password for 

access to the Google Apps pilot. 

This integration demonstrates the 

technology of the requirement 

for accepting externally issued 

identity credentials set forth in 

memoranda from the Federal 

Chief Information Officer.

The Federal Identity, Credential, 

and Access Management (FICAM) 

Roadmap and Implementation 

Guidance describe both the 

enterprise FICAM segment 

architecture and implementation 

guidance. The NASA Google 

Apps pilot provides an example of 

the benefits from the technology 

standards in the Federal trust 

framework. Because the same 

ID and credential are used, there 

are no new costs associated 

with registering or managing 

new identities or credentials that 

include the established level of 

confidence for the individual 

accessing the resources.

The NASA badge PIV card is 

issued as a common identification 

standard for Federal employees 

and contractors to increase 

security and reduce opportunities 

for identity fraud. In a similar 

manner, all Federal departments 

and agencies are required to issue 

PIV cards to their employees 

and contractors. Today there 

are more than 6 million PIV 

cards issued that can be used 

for personnel identification and 

that “(a) [are] issued based on 

sound criteria for verifying an 

individual employee’s identity; (b) 

[are] strongly resistant to identity 

fraud, tampering, counterfeiting, 

and terrorist exploitation; (c) 

can be rapidly authenticated 

electronically; and (d) [are] issued 

only by providers whose reliability 

has been established by an official 

accreditation process.” More 

information about Homeland 

Security Presidential Directive 12.

NASA also accepts and 

electronically verifies PIV 

credentials issued by other 

Federal agencies through a 

credential registration process. 

With this capability, any authorized 

Federal PIV cardholder, which 

includes the Department of 

Defense (DOD) Common Access 

Card (CAC), may access NASA 

applications with their PIV or 

CAC credential. This means that 

today, a PIV or CAC may be used 

for authentication to the Google 

Apps for Government NASA site.

NASA’s Federal Personal Identity Verification 

By Tim Baldridge, NASA ICAM Solutions Architect, MSFC

6 www.nasa.gov
JPL Research Network Improves 

Access for Foreign Personnel 

By Paul Averill, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology

Customer feedback is an 

important part of the Office 

of the CIO’s (OCIO) quest to 

“Innovate Together” at NASA’s 

Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). 

As a result of ideas solicited from 

the user community, many new 

services are now available that 

provide Lab-wide benefits. The 

latest service had its origins in a 

casual lunchtime conversation 

with the idea of transforming 

the constrained IT environment 

for JPL foreign personnel to 

something that was secure, 

yet conducive to research. 

From this simple conversation 

came an OCIO-led activity 

resulting in the May 2011 release 

of the JPL Research Network, 

a service that simplifies and 

improves access and ease of 

information sharing for JPL 

foreign personnel while retaining 

appropriate access controls. 

The Research Network enhances 

the current working environment 

by enabling both JPL foreign 

and U.S. personnel to exchange 

non-export-controlled data 

while providing JPL foreign 

personnel with simplified access 

to public and approved internal 

resources. Being logically 

isolated outside of the JPL 

network perimeter, the Research 

Network permits access to all 

publicly available JPL data and 

securely allows transparent 

access to foreign personnel’s 

permitted internal JPL resources 

via an access client.

Additional features and benefits 

of the Research Network 

include allowing JPL foreign 

personnel full administrative 

rights to their computers, 

removing the restrictive foreign 

personnel local firewall, and 

allowing changes to their 

permitted internal resources 

to be centrally managed 

and quickly implemented.

The creation of a simplified 

and secure environment 

for the Lab’s science and 

foreign personnel community 

has been an overwhelming 

success. The OCIO plans to 

apply a similar methodology 

to respond to the need of 

other Lab communities for 

controlled network access. v

It is important to understand 

the emphasis this and past 

administrations have placed on 

everyone who is in IT service 

delivery. With the convergence 

of mobile, cloud, and legacy 

computing infrastructures, 

the complexity of integration 

can be overwhelming, even 

more so when focusing on the 

confidentiality, integrity, and 

availability of the information. 

“The goal for Federal information 

security in FY 2011 is to build 

a defensible Federal enterprise 

that enables agencies to harness 

technological innovation, while 

protecting agency information 

and information systems.” 

More information about Federal 

Information Security Management 

is found in Presidential 

Memorandum M-11-33.

The NASA Procedural 

Requirements NPR 2841.1 

establishes requirements and 

responsibilities to properly manage 

FICAM services as an integrated 

end-to-end service to improve 

security, efficiency, and interCenter collaboration at NASA. 

More information on NPR 2841.1.

The specifics of this NPR apply 

to owners of information and 

systems as well as end users, 

among others. The best application 

integration approach embraces 

FICAM services to leverage the 

full capability and cross-functional 

interoperability for a seamless 

user experience, whether it 

is on a workstation or laptop 

while the user is in the office or 

on a mobile device when he or 

she is away from the office.

For more information on PIV 

credentials and the Federal 

CIO Council’s “Federal Identity, 

Credential, and Access 

Management Roadmap and 

Implementation Guidance,” visit 

http://www.idmanagement.gov. v

 (PIV) Credential Teams Up with Google Apps

NASA OCIO IT Talk January-March 2012 7
I3P Update

NASA Enterprise Service Desk

The NASA Enterprise Service 

Desk (ESD) is open for business 

and is currently supporting 

thousands of customers across 

the Agency. Customers at 

Wave 1 and 2 Centers (Dryden, 

Goddard, Headquarters, Kennedy, 

Glenn, Marshall, NASA Shared 

Services Center, and Stennis) 

can now open help tickets and 

order new services online. 

Employees are turning to ESD 

for support on Agency-funded 

ACES base services like e-mail, 

calendaring, directory, and NASA 

Data Center (NDC) password 

resets. On November 1, the first 

wave of ACES Centers went live 

utilizing the ESD for support on 

computer seats, mobile devices, 

printing, software, and much more. 

ESD’s scope expanded even 

further in December when the first 

waves of the NASA Integrated 

Communications Services 

(NICS) contract transitioned 

to ESD for support with Local 

Area Network (LAN) and other 

communication services. 

The higher-than-expected call 

volume has led to some longerthan-acceptable wait times 

during peak hours, which include 

Monday and Tuesday mornings. In 

response, ESD is adjusting staffing 

to meet demand which has led to 

improvements. The ESD Tier-0 Web 

site (https://esd.nasa.gov) is a great 

resource customers can leverage 

during peak hours to avoid any sort 

of wait time on the phone. Under 

the “My Tickets” option, there is 

an easy-to-use mechanism that 

allows customers to generate a 

new help ticket. Anyone with a 

NASA ID can utilize this online 

capability, manage all his or her 

open tickets, and even generate 

tickets on behalf of others. 

To order a new service (e.g., 

request a move, order a new 

seat, or purchase an item out 

of the ACES product catalog), a 

customer can visit the ESD Web 

site at https://esd.nasa.gov/, select 

“Order Services,” and browse the 

catalog for the appropriate option. 

You cannot make ESD service 

requests by phone; however, you 

may call an agent for assistance 

with placing your order online. 

To learn more about ESD, go 

to https://esd.nasa.gov.

ACES End-User Services

ACES began January 1, 2012, at 

Wave 2 Centers (Glenn, Marshall, 

NASA Shared Services Center, 

and Stennis). Hewlett-Packard 

Enterprise Services (HPES), 

the ACES service provider, had 

already assumed responsibility 

for Agency-wide services such 

as e-mail, calendaring, instant 

messaging, conferencing, 

and directory services.

HPES will deploy software to the 

Outsourcing Desktop Initiative 

for NASA (ODIN) seats in order to 

effectively manage the environment 

with a consistent set of tools. 

Deployment of new ACES seats 

is based on refresh eligibility 

(a standard 3-year life cycle) 

and replacing oldest devices 

first. This strategy will allow 

the transition to proceed more 

efficiently and effectively. 

Despite the delays in the transition 

implementation, HPES remains fully 

committed to completing an orderly 

transition to the ACES solution. 

The ACES Wave 3 implementation 

at Ames, Johnson, and Langley 

begins March 1, 2012. To learn 

more about ACES, visit https://

aces.ndc.nasa.gov/index.html.

NASA Integrated 

Communications Services 

Also on January 1, 2012, the NICS 

I3P contract assumed contractual 

responsibility for a portion of the 

work currently performed under the 

ODIN contract at Glenn, Marshall, 

the NASA Shared Services Center, 

and Stennis. The work consists 

of LAN and other local services 

with the associated engineering, 

operations, and maintenance in 

support of the local requirements.

The Communications Service 

Office will consolidate the 

provisioning of IT communications 

infrastructure services across 

all NASA Centers and facilities 

using a single Agency solution. 

Benefits include the following: 

•	 improved NASA IT security, 

•	 improved management of 

NASA’s IT infrastructure, and

•	 improved ability for NASA’s IT 

communications infrastructure 

to support emerging 

mission requirements. v

8 www.nasa.gov
End User Training Available on the ACES Web Site By Doug LeMere, ACES Communications Lead

The Agency Consolidated End-user Services 

(ACES) Web site is now operational for 

all NASA Centers. This site provides 

informational dropdowns on Services, 

Security, Training, Reference Guides, and IT 

Support to assist all NASA employees.

The “Training” tab provides users with many 

selections. There are a variety of training 

options available for familiarization, including 

interactive Web-based training on the System 

for Administration, Training, and Educational 

Resources for NASA (SATERN), user guides, 

ACES Product Catalog (APC) training, and 

virtual Lunch and Learn training sessions. 

Some of the SATERN courses offered include 

“Getting Started with Windows 7,” “Microsoft 

Office 2010,” and “Word for Mac 2011.” Users 

can also find a variety of user guides and training 

courses for the APC—“Bulk Order Training and 

How To Order Seats and Augmentation Using 

the APC,” “Computer and Mobile Hardware,” 

“Printer Hardware,” “Quick Reference Training 

Guides,” and “Software User and WebEx User 

Guides.” To learn more about ACES, visit the 

ACES Web site at https://aces.ndc.nasa.gov. v

Going the Extra Mile

NASA’s Office of the Chief 

Information Officer (OCIO) has 

launched the “I3P Cooperative 

Service Provider Award” 

campaign. This campaign will 

provide an incentive to motivate 

IT Infrastructure Integration 

Program (I3P) service providers 

to work cooperatively to 

encourage optimal end-to-end 

incident restoration times.

The I3P Cooperative Service 

Provider Award will be given to 

those IT service providers that 

work cooperatively with other IT 

service providers to consistently 

achieve total cross-provider 

service restoration times of 

less than (<) 7 hours. The 

OCIO will offer the I3P award 

in recognition of continuous 

monthly performance for 

those incidents requiring 

support from more than one IT 

service provider, as follows:

•	 3 months of restoring all 

multiprovider incidents in < 

7 hours = Bronze Award

•	 6 months of restoring all 

multiprovider incidents in 

< 7 hours = Silver Award

•	 9 months of restoring all 

multiprovider incidents in 

< 7 hours = Gold Award

•	 12 months of restoring all 

multiprovider incidents in < 

7 hours = Platinum Award

This award is a nonmonetary 

award to be provided annually 

by NASA’s OCIO, who will be 

responsible for reviewing incident 

records and for determining 

if a service provider merits 

an award. NASA’s OCIO will 

notify award recipients by mail. 

This award applies only to 

those service providers who 

participated in the resolution of 

cross-provider IT incidents and 

restoration of service and will be 

based on continuous months of 

multiprovider incident restoration.

The I3P Cooperative Service 

Provider Award criterion does 

not impose additional contractual requirements or modify any 

existing contractual requirements. Therefore, participation 

does not necessitate a contract 

modification or warrant an equitable adjustment to a contract.

In conclusion, this campaign will 

be an independent assessment 

of performance metrics aimed 

at encouraging multiprovider 

cooperation. OCIO will issue 

recognition awards to all the 

service providers that work 

cooperatively with other service 

providers to best address IT 

service management issues 

and incidents on behalf of 

NASA’s I3P initiative. v

NASA OCIO IT Talk January-March 2012 9
Liquid Galaxy Unlocking Data through Visualization

By Nicholas Skytland, Open Government Initiative

Data (and hence information) play 

an increasingly important role for 

NASA’s exploration and aeronautics 

missions. NASA produces more 

than 10 terabytes of new data each 

day, but quickly interpreting those 

data without thorough analysis is 

an overwhelming task. Fortunately, 

the same data when presented 

graphically convey the information 

more effectively. Data visualization 

is the study 

of the visual 

representation 

of data and 

has recently 

become a 

very active 

area of 

research. To 

demonstrate 

the power 

of data 

visualization 

at NASA, 

the Agency’s 

Open 

Government 

Initiative 

(OpenGov) 

team and 

Tietronix 

Software, Inc. recently led a 

technology demonstration project 

to construct Google’s opensourced immersive visualizer 

known as the “Liquid Galaxy.” 

The Liquid Galaxy is essentially a 

chamber of monitors arranged in 

a circle around you to create an 

immersive simulated environment. 

Engineers at Google built the 

first Liquid Galaxy in 2009 as a 

“20-percent project,” and Google 

decided to open-source the code 

so that anyone could build his 

or her own. Google’s version of 

Liquid Galaxy allowed you to fly 

anywhere in the world in seconds 

through the Google Earth platform. 

In December 2011, a 48-screen 

version was built by Google at 

the Paris Center for Architecture 

and Urbanism that shows Google 

Earth in 100 million pixels. 

The vision for NASA’s Liquid Galaxy 

was less focused on exploring the 

world via Google Earth (although 

it is impressive) and more about 

what we might be able to do with 

an immersive wraparound platform 

to visualize NASA data in a new 

way. The pilot project was funded 

by the Innovation Charge Account 

at Johnson Space Center (JSC) in 

spring 2011 and built for a fraction 

of the cost of Google’s original 

version. The pilot project resulted 

in an eight-screen plasma monitor 

system that was completed this 

fall. The installation at JSC was met 

with great interest, and OpenGov 

was asked to build an even more 

impressive nine-monitor liquid 

crystal display (LCD) system at 

NASA Headquarters, which was 

completed in December. Both 

exhibits are on display at their 

respective locations through 

the first quarter of 2012. 

OpenGov collaborated with a 

variety of groups on different 

aspects of the project. The 

project really kicked off during 

the NASA Forward Maker Camp 

at JSC in August 

2011. Employees 

from the Space 

Life Sciences 

and Engineering 

Directorates 

joined the 

OpenGov team in 

designing a unique 

80/20-based rack 

system that would 

eventually be 

used to mount the 

monitors vertically. 

This particular 

solution provides 

a configuration 

that will work for 

either a HyperWall 

or an Immersive 

Cave configuration 

of the Liquid Galaxy. OpenGov 

also worked with people from the 

Mission Operations Directorate 

and the new Commercial Crew 

and Cargo Program Office 

(C3PO) to overcome hurdles 

encountered with system 

configuration and optimization.

The OpenGov team has also made 

a number of improvements to 

the original Google Liquid Galaxy 

configuration, including installing 

ClusterGL, which provides 

graphics applications programming 

interfaces (API) calls over a 

network so that other machines 

can draw the graphics themselves 

Tracee McCall takes a tour of Earth via the Liquid Galaxy.

10 www.nasa.gov
without needing the application 

on their machine. This means that 

you can run one copy of a software 

program on one machine and set 

up the other machines to draw 

additional screens of data in order 

to make the field of view larger, 

essentially creating one giant 

computer. The OpenGov team has 

also configured both systems such 

that they can remotely monitor and 

control the system in order to make 

maintenance and repair easier. 

If you have an idea for how to 

use the Liquid Galaxy platform to 

visualize NASA data in a new way, 

we want to hear from you! The big 

plans for Liquid Galaxy in the future 

are predicated on your vision for 

how it can be used. Visit the http://

open.nasa.gov blog to find out 

more information (and view a short 

video of the exhibit) and contact 

the OpenGov team with any ideas 

at http://www.nasa.gov/open/. v

Brady Decker, CTO and Enterprise Architect for NASA HQ shows off the Moon.

NASA OCIO IT Talk January-March 2012 11
IT Security Corner

Employees Still 

Careless with E-mail

When it comes to e-mail, workers remain a major 

source of risk to both their employers and themselves. 

Despite the fact that e-mail has been in use 40 years, 

it is still a key way for business secrets to leak.

A recent survey of how people use e-mail 

shows that employees may still be a bit too 

loose with their e-mail use when it comes 

to sensitive and protected information.

Accidental Disclosure

For instance, respondents were asked: “Have 

you or any member of your organization ever sent 

information via e-mail that was in violation of regulatory 

compliance?” An unexpectedly high 73.7 percent of 

respondents said they had done so accidentally, while 

another 28 percent admitted to doing so intentionally. 

“Sender’s remorse” is a common affliction among 

e-mail users. About 50 percent indicated that they 

have worried about what might happen to e-mails 

after they sent them, and 20 percent said that 

e-mails have “haunted” them after being sent.

A surprisingly low 3 out of 10 respondents 

said they send private and confidential 

business information by e-mail.

About 10 percent of respondents said they have 

accidentally leaked confidential information, and 

60 percent of those surveyed admitted that they 

have made the classic mistake of accidentally 

hitting “reply all” when responding to an e-mail.

E-mail sent unencrypted is insecure and vulnerable 

to potential disclosure. Any e-mail which transmits 

sensitive information, either within the message 

body or as an attachment, must be encrypted. v

Protect | Prevent | Preserve

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Office of the Chief Information Officer

300 E Street, SW

Washington, D.C. 20546

www.nasa.gov

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