NASA App review

Mark Mackay

We review the NASA Appan iPhone application that gives you the lowdown on what the worlds most infamous space agency has on the cards

Published on Oct 30, 2009

NASA is one organisation that should require no introduction. However, for anyone that has been living on another planet for the last 50 odd years (one that NASA hasn't visited, that is) it's an organization that's in the business sending people to the moon and otherwise exploring outer space.

NASA App appears to have been put together in order to showcase the organsation's work. Whether this is to get attention from potential investors or collaborators, or just to show off the app features a wealth of interesting titbits.

The first of the four buttons along the bottom of the screen is the mission feature which – at the time of writing – outlays nine of NASA's forthcoming space escapades.

Each item shows an image of what we assume to be the equipment involved in the execution and some text describing what it is that NASA's planning on attempting. At the bottom of the page is a count down timer to the launch date of the mission which is pretty cool and helps put things in context.

Next to the button that opens the missions feature is an image gallery. In here you will find a broad selection of NASA-related snaps of everything from breath-taking nebulae to photographs of planets and important-looking NASA boffins accepting rewards for whatever crazy space shenanigans they've been involved in.

The NASA App also features a selection of videos which play via YouTube. Many of the videos are interviews with more NASA bods but many of them are documentary-style videos of various NASA goings-on.

Much of the content is very interesting and the video quality is excellent, not the grainy rubbish that you often see via YouTube on your iPhone.

Finally the app features a NASA RSS feed which gives updates on recent developments within the organisation. Overall, the NASA App is feature packed and none of it is filler.

Anyone that's interested in following NASA's progress will definitely want to give this a glace, especially considering that all of these goodies are delivered for free.