An anonymous reader writes:
Aaron Rowe over at Wired has an article about a couple of young scientists at NASA's Ames Research Center working to open source the space program through software development and other ways to allow the public to participate in real NASA programs. According to Robert Schingler, the NASA CoLab project manager, "CoLab is building an infrastructure to encourage and facilitate direct participation from the talented and interested public..." Apparently, the group holds weekly meetings on their island in the popular online virtual world Second Life. This should be of real interest to Slashdotters. The article also notes that there will be a massive science and technology party at NASA Ames this Friday night open to the public. I don't know about you, but as my first opportunity to visit the inside of a NASA center, I'm sure going!