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NASA's Research Is Now Freely Available Online

Michele Debczak|
International Space Station. Image credit: Wikimedia Commons // Public Domain
International Space Station. Image credit: Wikimedia Commons // Public Domain | International Space Station. Image credit: Wikimedia Commons // Public Domain

Aspiring rocket scientists and casual space enthusiasts are in luck: NASA’s publicly funded research is now available online for free, the Independent reports.

The initiative comes after a push from the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy in 2013 to make NASA's research more accessible to the public. Previously, the limited information that was available online was often behind a paywall. Under the new policy, every research paper NASA funds (barring those that deal with sensitive subjects like national security) must be released online within a year of its publication. A web portal called PubSpace hosts the content, and as of now the resource is home to more than 850 articles. More are on the way.  

Institutions from art museums to prestigious colleges have embraced the internet as a way of making their materials more accessible to a wider audience. According to a press release from the agency, “promoting the full and open sharing of data is a longstanding core value of NASA,” and this latest move falls in line with that.

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After you’ve finished reading about the potential for life on Titan, the impact of Moon dust on rat health, and the solar cycle, you can follow PubSpace for even more stellar (and interstellar) research to come.

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