In 2007, a small group of people began an intentional, collaborative experiment in open, transparent, and direct communication about your space program. Our goal was to enable your direct participation in exploring and contributing to NASA’s mission.

Many of us have since begun new adventures. This site will remain as an archive of the accomplishments of the openNASA experiment.

Ali Llewellyn

The Space Apps Challenge rap. If you’re curious… you qualify.

The fact that there is a serious discussion happening right now in this room about quantum cryptography and how we can transmit secret messages by laser on and off the Earth.

Space Apps Tokyo’s annual Space Shuttle sushi.

The note sent by a Canadian fifth grader who wanted to help on the Lego Rover project. “I am in grade 5, I would like to join your group as I am very good at lego, Ican brainstorm quickly and nicely, and I am aa good visualiser.” 

A team here in Singapore who considered all the offered challenges… but then turned around and said, what if we didn’t want to just do any of those things, and we wanted to think about how all this data relates and how real people see it? Then they started to draw out data overlaps on the white boards, really thoughtful about why this stuff matters.

This intro video by the leads of Space Apps Toulouse. (and their excitement)

Will.i.am’s song Reach for the Stars and the fact that there’s a challenge about it.

Talking to astronauts. (coming soon!)

Truly global collaboration. Where else are there projects on all 7 continents, from San Francisco to Cotonou, Benin, from Port-au-Prince, Haiti to London, from Kathmandu, Nepal to Maui! I am so inspired by this vision that is engaging major urban tech centers as well as smaller communities without the same access or privileges… drawing people from every corner of the Earth in to be a part of humanity’s future on Earth and in space.

Projects like mWater that epitomize the possibilities of space apps to impact life on Earth.

Space Apps Toronto’s youth event and every site that is intentionally engaging students. Way to inspire change!

The team that is 3D printing Gale Crater, the teams that are all designing Deployable Greenhouses, and the participants who can’t sleep at night because they are dreaming about space ideas.

Volunteers who spend the weekend following the threads and telling the stories.

The amazing open.NASA team who has worked so hard on this project for no reason other than they believe in mass collaboration and what we can do when we work together… and that data transparency, participatory exploration and real collaboration really is vital to NASA’s exploration mission.

All the people who haven’t even asked but already start sentences “when we do it next year…”

We already have 279 projects in progress… and we’re only halfway through.