Become a Rocket Scientist!

NASA has launched a new program called CosmosCode, which is an attempt to open source space mission software. The Wired News article on the project details some of the goals and thoughts behind the project’s co-founders. The idea is to leverage the power of open source programming to create software needed for space flights. I find the idea pretty intriguing, but I do worry about quality control. While bugs in open source software are often found incredibly fast (and fixed faster), something like space flight is notoriously unforgiving of even the slightest bug. Writing a web application isn’t in the same league as writing software that simply can not fail. However, if you feel you’re game and have the programming chops to pull it off, take a look at the CoLab page for more information about the CosmosCode Project!