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Critical Issues in NASA Information Systems Final Report to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (1987) / Chapter Skim
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2. Summary of Issues
Pages 10-16

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From page 10...
... Indeed, the Committee understood that NASA and OSSA already have considerable information management capabilities, and that the requirements for considerably -- greater capabiJities are destined to grow much larger. Even the combined impact of the Challenger disaster and the forced budget reductions stemming from the Gramm-RuUman-Hollings Act have served only to slow down the implementation of NASA's and OSSA's plans; the planning goes on.
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From page 11...
... "Such an information system is clearly a formidable undertaking, but it is essential to the pursuit of Earth System Science."* Evidence such as the foregoing tends to indicate that information management is very important to the OSSA mission and will become even more important as future science discipline programs emerge and undergo development.
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From page 12...
... Indeed, the continued existence of the ISO can be interpreted to mean that some degree of centralization is favored. However, it is not clear to what extent the ISO's authority or resources wild be increased through this action, or whether any such increases wild be sufficient to enable that office to provide central direction of the overall future information systems planning and management workload.
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From page 13...
... It has been concluded that the Department of Defense (DoD) program to establish interoperability among its networks succeeded primarily because DoD mandated the use of its Transmission Control Protocol (TCP)
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From page 14...
... , which was formed in January 1986 by a group of computer and communications manufacturing companies, is establishing conformance and interoperability test programs to verify member-companies' product compliance with the "ISO" OSI standards. The purpose is to to assure acceptance of an open network architecture in world markets by accelerating the introduction of interoperable, multivendor products and services.
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From page 15...
... Commission on Physical Sciences, Mathematics, and Resources. While it is cd ear that OSSA has gotten its users involved in information systems planning and management, the Committee found that all too often OSSA involves users early in the information system design phase, but does not develop a continuing dialogue with them during the development phase.
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From page 16...
... With the arrival of the Space Station era, mission and discipline boundaries wild overlap, and huge volumes of data will be collected by NASA and others to support a large number of interdisciplinary projects involving hundreds of scientists. Comprehensive planning has already been initiated for such missions and for the associated data and information systems to handle the huge volumes of data and the product requirements of the users.
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Key Terms

  • information management
  • sciences committee
  • science directorates
  • standards organization
  • space science

  • huge volumes
  • international standards
  • space station
  • station era
  • anticipated data

  • complex tasks
  • situ observations
  • ocean dynamics
  • objectives listed
  • base formats

  • features required
  • data remains
  • draft international
  • effective access
  • undergo development

  • experience base
  • selective application
  • applications missions
  • deeper understanding
  • energy balance

  • discipline programs
  • involve users
  • future missions
  • tremendous experience
  • instrument package


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