

NASA data API - bambax
https://data.nasa.gov/developer

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dluan
So excited for this. If anyone wants to start experimenting with this data set
in cool and open ways, I will personally fund your small micro experiments.

NASA's APOD is so awesome and that's just a picture, imagine all the potential
fantastic content that's now available and what you could do with it.

~~~
kiloreux
That would be great how can i contact you ?

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dluan
I will put up a call for proposals on Experiment.com (I am the founder), don't
expect me to commit a lot, but between friends and colleagues, I'm thinking we
could review many proposals and get a few exciting projects off the ground.
This is a great excuse for me to get around to doing this, and doing it in a
transparent and democratic way.

edit - here's the link for more info:
[http://blog.experiment.com/post/117058351892/rfp-nasa-
open-d...](http://blog.experiment.com/post/117058351892/rfp-nasa-open-data)

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pierrec
Is there a compilation of applications and experiments using each API?

The classical example of cool stuff you can do with this kind of API is the
world wind map:

[http://earth.nullschool.net/](http://earth.nullschool.net/)

~~~
chrisvxd
That's awesome! Thanks for sharing.

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chris-metcalf
Chris Metcalf here, Developer Evangelist from Socrata
([http://dev.socrata.com](http://dev.socrata.com)), the company that provides
the platform that hosts the catalog and some of the open data APIs they're
providing. I'm glad to answer whatever questions I can here.

~~~
IndianAstronaut
Are you working with the new chief Data Scientist and his team to set this up?

Are the tools you're developing just for US government data or are you also
branching out into state and international governments?

~~~
chris-metcalf
We worked with a team from across NASA to build it, including the Ames
Research Center and other groups.

At Socrata we work with all levels of governments, including cities, states,
federal agencies, and even international governments around the world:
[http://www.socrata.com/customer-stories/](http://www.socrata.com/customer-
stories/)

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hrayr
Looks like they need to work on better error controls. They left DEBUG=True
which produces debug stack traces on exceptions.

[https://api.data.gov/nasa/planetary/earth/assets?lon=100.75&...](https://api.data.gov/nasa/planetary/earth/assets?lon=100.75&lat=1.5&begin=2014-02-010&api_key=DEMO_KEY)

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natch
And look at that, it's https. Excellent. (reference to the poorly-thought-out
rant at
[https://github.com/WhiteHouse/https/issues/107](https://github.com/WhiteHouse/https/issues/107))

~~~
skram
open.whitehouse.gov is HTTPS :)

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dhammer
I am the developer that left the stack trace on returned exceptions. This is
part of my Presidential Innovation Fellowship project at NASA. Yes, we work
with the Chief Data Scientist, who is a wonderful and brilliant guy. Yes, we
work with state and local governments, too - where "we" is civic tech in the
US government (18F, USDS, PIF, among others). I'd love help on these APIs.
First step: submit issues on the docs (github.com/nasa/api-docs).

~~~
hrayr
Hey good job. Did you leave the stack trace on purpose or by accident?

~~~
dhammer
a mix? maybe? i'm sort of swamped. i wish i could open this up to get some
help. but i can't yet.

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anigbrowl
Not only is this API availability great, the short descriptions of what each
one does are outstanding. So many 'try our API' pages are written in
developer-ese that tells you up front about the mechanics of interacting with
it but fail to explain what sort of things you could do with it. Documentation
is much more than just a command reference!

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IndianAstronaut
This is great. I have tried to access NASA's open data before. It was quite
scattered and non-intuitive. Even the USGS also has a nice data API as well.
BLS and DOE not so much.

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dunk010
I read this as "NSA data API" and it took me a full 5 seconds of staring,
eyebrows raised, at the astronaut to realise my mistake.

~~~
imaginenore
I bet it exists internally :)

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hackerews
If you're lazy like me and want to fiddle around without reading docs, here
are code + spreadsheet snippets for 2 endpoints:

\- Landsat8 Satellite Images: [https://api.blockspring.com/pkpp1233/nasa-
earth-image#use-in...](https://api.blockspring.com/pkpp1233/nasa-earth-
image#use-in-code).

\- Local Temperature Anomalies: [https://api.blockspring.com/pkpp1233/earth-
temperature-anoma...](https://api.blockspring.com/pkpp1233/earth-temperature-
anomalies#use-in-code).

What a neat API. Cheers!

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Derpdiherp
Bah - I managed to get a few landsat images through the earth API. I was going
to construct a timelapse of new orleans through the 2005 floods. But when I
specify I date I'm always getting an exception - Exception: No imagery for
specified date.

It would be nice if there was some more info on what the datasets actually are
- such as when they where created etc. It would also be nice for this to have
some more detailed logs - such as the date of images that are actually
returned if it's an approximation of the date you've specified.

~~~
dhammer
fair. try the assets endpoint ([http://nasa.github.io/api-
docs/#assets](http://nasa.github.io/api-docs/#assets)). but i'll work on this.
add an issue here: [https://github.com/nasa/api-
docs](https://github.com/nasa/api-docs)

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justinph
Wow, predict the sky looks pretty neat:
[http://predictthesky.org/](http://predictthesky.org/)

Too bad it doesn't seem to actually work.

~~~
lordbusiness
I had an aw shucks moment too! api.predictthesky.org doesn't resolve, and
there is nothing on the API GitHub repo. The landing page says 2013 so I'm
wondering if this got abandoned. Would have been really neat to play with.

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hsparikh
This is wonderful. We will be using/hosting some of these datasets on Tuva
(tuvalabs.com) for educators and learners in K-12, Higher-Ed, and beyond.

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alexellis
Gist in node.js for getting a list of fly-bys of satellite (apparently every
16 days) for a lat/lon combination and then downloading the images for
inspection. Tweak the 'dim' for zoom level.

[https://gist.github.com/alexellis/0bb982253f3619e29f18](https://gist.github.com/alexellis/0bb982253f3619e29f18)

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jplahn
This is awesome! I'm currently working through a machine learning project for
one of my classes, and I was using flight data (which is also super
interesting), but the inner astronomer in me is pushing for me to scrap
everything I've done and pick a dataset from here.

But, even if I don't, I foresee many experiments with this data. Awesome.

~~~
dhammer
i'm hoping to publish astronomy images here, just like the earth imagery - so
that you can run your algorithms to detect light blobs, etc.

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spiritplumber
I wonder how hard it would be to put this stuff into Kerbal Space Program and
update the solar system in realtime...

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j0e1
Finally! A trusted/standard API for APOD.. Will make the code of my hobbyist
Android App so much cleaner.

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jmadsen
Nice! Endless learning tools & games to come out of this one

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SpaceInvader
This is fantastic news! I was waiting for that to happen :)

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niels_olson
Can somebody put together a quick tutorial on how to get from this API to
charts generated in ipython?

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rafaqueque
Glad to see this.

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tylermac1
At first glance I thought this read "NSA data API".

Knew it was too good to be true. Still very cool nonetheless. The Landsat 8
data is very neat specifically.

~~~
hrayr
> At first glance I thought this read "NSA data API". If they gobble
> everything up on the internet, then I suppose their data API is the
> internet.

