Guiding the Future of Planetary Data Archives

20 October 2020

I’m so excited to announce that I’m going to be helping to advise NASA on the future of the Planetary Data Ecosystem. To do that, I need your help.

What is the PDE? NASA explains that it’s “the ad hoc connected framework of activities and products that are built upon and support the data collected by planetary space missions and research programs.” The PDE includes such things as:

….and much, much more (see the bottom of this post for the incomplete list that NASA came up with.

They really mean it when they say ad hoc. It’s the amazing and wonderful museum of NASA, containing all the treasures of NASA that are on public display. Actually, scratch that, not a museum, a gigantic fantasy library. At the core of the PDE is the data from early Mariner missions, hastily copied from enormous tape reels to digital formats when it became clear that the original media were decaying, like the ancient tiny fortress at the center of a castle. That fortress is now entirely buried within enormous architectural wings built out to contain the riches returned from dozens of subsequent missions. It’s easy and often a joy to get lost down twisty corridors of the PDE, but if you want to find something specific or even just find out what’s in the castle, it can be frustrating. The library-palace does contain curators who take care of those treasures and the buildings themselves and who serve all the people who can freely walk inside. If you go inside, you can pick up any treasure you like and walk out the door with it, and the library-palace will magically replace it with another one; NASA’s riches never decrease by being shared.

Ahem. My simile may have run away with me here, a little bit. Getting back to business:

NASA is assembling a Planetary Data Ecosystem Independent Review Board. “The IRB will review the current state of the PDE and provide findings and prioritized, actionable recommendations that can be translated into an optimal PDE strategy.” I’m a co-chair of the NASA PDE IRB, steering a subcommittee on “Searching” – that is, looking at how it works for people to search for and find data within the PDE. My subcommittee is tasked with thinking about how it should ideally work for people of all kinds (professional, amateur, scientist, artist, historian, teachers, students, experienced, or newbies), and defining what needs to be done to make the PDE work as well as it can for everybody.

To that end, NASA wants to hear from YOU. Have you ever used or ever tried to use any of these elements, for science, education, or fun? How has it worked for you? How has it not worked for you? NASA has a Request for Information out, providing a formal process to give feedback, and I encourage everyone who can spare the time to respond that way. The deadline is November 9. However, if that’s too intimidating for you, or if you’re just too busy, you can just send me an email, too. In fact, I especially want to hear from you if you’ve ever tried approaching any of these things and given up because you couldn’t figure it out. We need to find out the ways it’s not serving people, and make recommendations for how it can be made to serve you better.

Here’s NASA’s list of Planetary Data Ecosystem elements. If you think there’s something missing, I want to hear about that, too. I’m looking forward to hearing from LOTS of you.