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Executive Summary
NASA is committed to the Open Government Initiative. Building on our founding legislation in 1958 which directed NASA to “…provide for the widest practicable and appropriate dissemination of information concerning its activities and the results thereof,” we continue to take a focused approach to expanding the level of openness within the Agency. This same legislation directed NASA to “…arrange for participation of the scientific community…” as part of our mission; we recognize this as a constantly evolving task to collaborate in ways not yet imagined at the Agency’s inception. Our Plan reflects the success stories and lessons learned from living out the principles of Open Government embedded in NASA’s operations and culture for more than half a century.
Included in the Plan is a Flagship Initiative, three additional major initiatives, ten highlighted activities and a directory of more than 100 additional Agency activities that exemplify the Open Government Directive at NASA. The initiatives and activities in this Plan highlight specific efforts at NASA that meet and, in many cases, exceed the requirements of the Open Government Directive. Our Flagship Initiative for nasa.gov defines the intersection of NASA’s policy, technology, and culture, acting as a catalyst for openness inside and outside of the Agency.
NASA has identified activities and success stories that embody values of transparency, participation, and collaboration and seeks to build upon them. Open Government principles are already evident in numerous activities underway throughout the Agency; therefore, this revision of the Plan captures these activities in one place for the benefit of all.
The revised Plan will be entirely online, creating a platform where activity owners may update their activities according to their own timeline, where site visitors can comment and interact, and where other applicable articles and sites can be interconnected and cross-linked. The online platform will also permit Portable Data Format (PDF) snapshots of the current content at any time.
The revised Plan will continue to be guided by a strong multi-dimensional framework, addressing technology, policy, and culture, in order to meet the Agency’s mission, vision, values, and goals. It reflects the Agency’s ongoing commitment to its original five guiding principles from version 1.0 of the NASA Open Government Plan:
1. Increase Agency transparency and accountability to external stakeholders
2. Enable citizen participation in the NASA mission
3. Improve internal NASA collaboration and innovation
4. Encourage partnerships capable of creating economic opportunity
5. Institutionalize Open Government philosophies and practices at NASA
The Plan is based on a perspective of continuous learning; integration of policy, technology, and culture; and the rapidly changing external environment. We believe that integrating Open Government Principles into existing systems (e.g., governance councils and performance management system) provides the best framework for success.
The Open Government Directive calls on NASA to do what it does best-innovate. In our history, we have achieved seemingly impossible goals, from reaching the Moon to advancing fundamental knowledge about our place in the universe. In the past we would create the technologies to achieve these goals through internal teams and collaborations. NASA must now innovate on how we innovate, focusing on technologies that advance humanity into space while more directly involving citizens and public-private partnerships. The Open Government Directive also calls on us to become a twenty-first-century space program for a twenty-first-century democracy.