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Commercialization

NASA Praises a Spinoff That It Has Already Dumped

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
February 13, 2013
Filed under , , , , , ,

NASA Spinoff 2012 Features New Space Tech Bettering Your Life Today
NASA Spinoff 2012 (PDF)
“Curry agrees: “In the future, you can envision almost all computing being done in the cloud, much of which could be powered by OpenStack. I think that NASA will need to receive significant credit for that in the history books. What we’ve been able to do is unbelievable– especially when you remember that it all started in a NASA lab.”
NASA Drops OpenStack For Amazon Cloud, Information Week (2012)
“Ray O’Brien, acting CIO at NASA Ames, when asked May 30 by InformationWeek about NASA’s participation, used diplomatic language to say that NASA still endorsed the project, was proud of its founding role, and might be a user of OpenStack components in the future. “It is very possible that NASA could leverage OpenStack as a customer in the future,” he wrote in his email response. Then, in a June 8 blog, NASA CIO Linda Cureton dispensed with the diplomacy: “NASA [has] shifted to a new Web services model that uses Amazon Web Services for cloud-based enterprise infrastructure,” she wrote.”
Keith’s note: I find it rather odd that NASA brags about developing OpenStack in its Spinoff 2012 document but does not bother to inform the reader (taxpayer) that the agency actually dumped OpenStack.
NASA CIO Dumps NASA-Developed Open Stack, earlier post

NASA Watch founder, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA, Away Teams, Journalist, Space & Astrobiology, Lapsed climber.

5 responses to “NASA Praises a Spinoff That It Has Already Dumped”

  1. Astrumporta says:
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    Both things are true. We developed it, and it has been the most successful open source project in NASA history. That NASA isn’t using it doesn’t diminish that fact. Companies have started up around it, and it’s being used by thousands. It’s a wonderful example of a spin-off.

    • kcowing says:
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      It is totally misleading for NASA to tell people that it developed a ‘spinoff” but not tell the same people that the agency decided to abandon its use after a very short period of time.

      • npng says:
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        I agree.

        Saying OpenStack is a “spinoff” in such a short time confuses the national audience.  NASA should consider creating a new category, something like “tailspin” or if they are conjuring stories, a “talespin” or if for a new technology quickly dumped, a “stalespin”.

        • Steve Whitfield says:
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          Did that coalesce in your head all at once, or did you have to think about it?  If the latter, then we’ll call it a spin-on.

  2. dogstar29 says:
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    Spinoff was originally proposed during Apollo as “free” benefits that then were used to justify the extremely high cost of human spaceflight. If NASA is going to justify the tax dollars it spends, it needs to start producing science and technology of practical value on earth as a primary goal, not as an unintended byproduct.