Space Exploration in Your Backyard
Our Common Space
Summary
Our Common Space is a website that makes accessible the information of all the centers dedicated to the work of space exploration. The centers are classified into four categories: government agencies, research institutions, businesses, and universities. The site contains several interactive maps in which the user can navigate to find which centers are located near their community, as well as filter their search according to the previously mentioned classification. Also, once all the centers resulting from the search are displayed, information on each of them can be accessed: what they do, examples of significant contributions, how to contact them, and the hours they serve the general public.
How We Addressed This Challenge
The challenge asks us to develop a visual representation of the breadth of the space sector in the different communities, so the main function of the Our Common Space website is a directory that shows general information and location of centers dedicated to space exploration. It is important because it makes accessible the knowledge of the activity related to this field in every community.
Website features:
- Search for centers related to space exploration.
- Map containing all registered locations of centers related to space exploration.
- Map filtering the centers by categories: government agencies, research institutions, businesses, and universities.
- Map filtering the centers according to their location in different cities.
- A page dedicated to each center, showing its information: history, contributions, discoveries and projects developed, services offered to the general public, business hours, events, contact information, and the option to share all this in the user's social networks.
- News section showing the most recent discoveries related to the field.
- Registration for a newsletter to obtain recent news and information about events held in the user's community.
Our main objective is that people approach the field of the aerospace industry, making them see that it directly influences their community and is not as far away as they sometimes think. We hope that the knowledge provided by our website will encourage them to take advantage of the resources of the centers shown on it, as they are closer to their reach than they expected.
*On our website, the logos of the centers are deactivated to avoid a violation of the intellectual property of each center. The authorization for its publication will be negotiated in the future.
Link to our website: http://ourcommonspace.net/
How We Developed This Project
This challenge inspired us because many people do not know the research in the aerospace sector that is carried out in their city. Despite the fact that we included research centers in other countries, our greatest inspiration is Mexico. We want more people to get involved in this field, we want more Mexicans to be informed about the study and work opportunities in this incredible area.
But not only that, it is well known that young people in the present, will be the future adults that witness the first woman on the Moon or the first humans to set foot on Mars, that is why today, more than ever, we need growth in this sector.
Our approach
We think that the best way to address this challenge is through a website (an maybe, in the future, a mobile app), because it is an easily used tool that can be accessed by all kinds of public.
To create our website, we bought a domain and used WordPress to develop it. The main obstacle was to determine the website's structure, but once it was settled, it was easy to submit all the centers and news that we wanted to be shown. We did a great job working as a team and did our best to make sure that our project is as well developed as possible. We are very proud and happy with our results.
How We Used Space Agency Data in This Project
We used the NASA open data to collect information about the centers included in our website, as well as some news posted in our blog. In addition, the NASA Image of the day archive provided us with images for the website pages. We also used open data from the CSA, the Mexican government and all the centers' websites.
Data & Resources
- https://www.nasa.gov/about/sites/index.html
- https://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/iotd.html
- https://sbir.nasa.gov/advanced_search
- https://www.asc-csa.gc.ca/eng/default.asp
- https://www.nasa.gov/centers/armstrong/home/index.html
- https://www.nasa.gov/centers/jpl/home/index.html
- https://www.nasa.gov/centers/kennedy/home/index.html
- https://www.nasa.gov/centers/johnson/home/index.html
- https://www.nasa.gov/centers/ivv/home/index.html
- https://www.giss.nasa.gov/
- https://www.nasa.gov/goddard
- https://www.nasa.gov/centers/glenn/home/index.html
- https://www.nasa.gov/ames
- https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=7757
- https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=7756
- https://www.gob.mx/aem
- http://epistemia.nucleares.unam.mx/web?name=linx
- https://www.upaep.mx/
- https://upaep.mx/aztechsat
- https://www.giss.nasa.gov/
- https://www.aritex-es.com/
- https://www.cronica.com.mx/notas-confinados_pero_entusiasmados_estudiantes_traen_a_mexico_reto_de_apps_de_la_nasa-1164623-2020