Page 46 - FCW, July 2017

THE
NASA’s reputation for scientific proficiency and techni- cal achievement is well earned. After all, the agency has put a man on the moon, traversed previously unknown regions of the universe and sparked some of humankind’s most astounding discoveries.
NATURAL
Underpinning all those accomplishments are IT and data. The agency prides itself on being a pioneer in open-data practices, creating and sharing a vast array of code, and driving the computer age’s cutting edge for decades.
Given that track record, it can be hard to reconcile the fact that NASA has not always fared nearly so well with the more mundane aspects of federal IT.
TENSIONS IN
Yet for the same reasons NASA innovates as bril- liantly as it does, it has struggled with the more rou- tine, compliance-based technological and cyberse- curity exercises — namely the Federal Information Security Management Act and the Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act.
NASA’S IT
For an agency that still relies on legacy systems and coding languages that were created before the first moon landing, it’s almost as if there’s a tension between innovation and IT management.
“The federated governance structure, which is what NASA has, does some things very well by definition
For an agency that relies so heavily on technology, NASA has struggled to protect its networks and make the most of its massive purchasing power. What gives?
BY CHASE GUNTER
28 July 2017 FCW.COM