The Collaborative Space Travel and Research Team (CSTART) is a non-government, non-profit, collaborative space agency whose mission is is to organize and finance the efforts of space enthusiasts around the world who are interested in using collaborative design, volunteer labor, innovative, low-cost technology and open data sharing to further the cause of manned and unmanned space exploration and research. Participation is encouraged for anyone who wishes to contribute in any small or large, but meaningful way.

CSTART creates open source plans for space travel and research projects, ranging from simple sounding rockets (the OHKLA project) all the way up to manned moon landings (the CLLARE project). They write open source software, including software to help plan space missions, software to run on spacecraft and software to help track and communicate with spacecraft from the ground. CSTART is dedicated to open source design principles, using freely available and open source tools wherever possible, and easily available resources where an open source alternative does not exist.

Team members are located around the globe, and are experts in many different areas: physics and engineering, law and business, graphic design, and everything in between. You don’t need to be a scientist or engineer to be involved in CSTART: they need people with experience in business, marketing, law, graphic design and other fields just as much as they need rocket scientists!

Project owners + coordinators:
Luke Maurits, acting director
Ben Miller-Jacobson, acting director
Titan Miller, acting director
Rizwan Memon, acting director
Ryan Pulkrabek, acting director

To learn more and participate, visit: http://cstart.org

To stay up-to-date on this project:
• follow @cstartorg
• read cstart.org/blog
• join cstart.org/forum
• explore cstart.org/wiki

The VW is a general purpose image processing and computer vision library developed by the Autonomous Systems and Robotics (ASR) Area in the Intelligent Systems Division at the NASA Ames Research Center. VW has been publicly released under the terms of the NASA Open Source Software Agreement. They are working to establish out a process through which outside parties can actively participate as developers on this project.

The VW was implemented in the C++ programming language and makes extensive use of C++ templates and generative programming techniques for conciseness of expression, efficiency of operation, and generalization of implementation. The intended audience for the VW includes computer vision and robotics researchers and developers, as well as those who simply want to transform or enhance images. At this point in time, the VW may not be suitable for those who have little experience or familiarity with C++.

While substantial functionality is implemented in the VW, the goal of the library is not to provide advanced cutting-edge image processing or computer vision capabilities. Rather, the intent is to provide a solid efficient foundation implementing well known techniques and a common framework for doing advanced research and development in collaboration with others.

The NASA Ames Stereo Pipeline (ASP) is one of the flagship applications based on the Vision Workbench and is looking for contributors. ASP is a suite of automated geodesy & stereogrammetry tools designed for processing planetary imagery captured from orbiting and landed robotic explorers on other planets. It was designed to process stereo imagery captured by NASA spacecraft and produce cartographic products including digital elevation models (DEMs), ortho-projected imagery, and 3D models. These data products are suitable for science analysis, mission planning, and public outreach.

The Vision Workbench resulted from a collaboration between IRG and the Adaptive Control and Evolvable Systems (ACES) group to more effectively leverage technical expertise embodied in disparate ASR image processing and computer vision code bases by developing a framework implementing common functionality and providing a common infrastructure for collaboration and reuse of code.

Project owners + coordinators:
Vision Workbench project manager

To learn more, visit: http://ti.arc.nasa.gov/projects/visionworkbench

To contribute code, email: vision-workbench-owner@lists.nasa.gov

To stay up-to-date on this project:
• email vision-workbench-request@lists.nasa.gov an empty message with the subject ’subscribe’ (without the quotes)

A stepped program of robotic missions that seek to return mankind to the lunar surface, and to do it in such a way that it is accessible to everyone. The Open Luna Foundation is open source and invites everyone (hardware providers, writers, wiki-editors, designers, etc.) to contribute and share what you want to do and what science you would like to see done on their wiki. One of their specific aims is to reach out to the community and educational systems to spread interest, enthusiasm, and involvement.

Following these purely robotic missions, a short series of manned missions will construct a small, approximately 6 person settlement based on a location scouted by the robotic missions. This settlement will be open for anyone’s use (private individuals to government agencies), provided they respect the ethical conduct and heritage policies. Currently, most of the work on the missions is being done on the wiki.

Project owners + coordinators:
Paul Graham, project manager
Dr. Gary E. Snyder Jr., P.E., chief engineer
Melissa Battler, planetary geologist / science team lead
Richard M. Reeser, CPA, treasurer
Emily Colvin, marketing resources lead
Chantelle Baier, public relations team lead
Kelley Sands, marketing materials / artist

To learn more and participate, visit: http://openluna.org

To stay up-to-date on this project:
• explore openluna.org/wiki

An open source 3D interactive world viewer created by NASA’s Learning Technologies project, released in mid-2004. It is now developed by NASA staff and open source community developers. World Wind lets you zoom from satellite altitude into any place on Earth. Leveraging Landsat satellite imagery and Shuttle Radar Topography Mission data, World Wind lets you experience Earth terrain in visually rich 3D, just as if you were really there.

World Wind provides geospatial visualization technology via extensible and modular components that can be incorporated into any application. World Wind spurs innovation by involving the world community in advancing this cross-platform Java-based technology.

Project owners + coordinators:
Patrick Hogan, project manager
Randy Kim
Chris Maxwell
Tom Gaskins
Bruce Lam

To learn more and participate, visit:
http://worldwind.arc.nasa.gov

To stay up-to-date on this project:
• join forum.worldwindcentral.com
• explore worldwindcentral.com/wiki

An open-source, photo-realistic, real-time, three-dimensional viewing of the solar system, the galaxy and the universe. Celestia is an easy to use, freely-distributed, multi-platform, open source, software package which has become a valuable tool for astronomy education. Used in homes, schools, museums and planetariums around the world, it also is used as a visualization tool by space mission designers. Versions are available for computers running Windows, Macintosh (Mac OS X) and Linux operating systems.

Although it is optimized for 3D astronomical visualization, Celestia can be used to display and explore other 3D environments, too. Celestia is an open-source project. As such, its source code is provided and is freely modifiable and redistributable as per the GNU Public License.

Project owners + coordinators:
Chris Laurel

To learn more and participate, visit:
http://shatters.net/celestia/

To stay up-to-date on this project:
• join shatters.net/forum
• explore en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Celestia