Google’s Eric Schmidt just gave a speech in Washington that posits that agencies like NASA should be collaborating more with the private sector, and learning from open standards being developed in open source communities.

Makes sense…I think there are already some good examples (Google Earth being the most obvious) of NASA and consumer technology merging. I think the benefits are two-fold. On the one hand, NASA and other government agencies should be able to be a little more nimble in how they embrace and utilize technology without the red tape involved with rolling out new systems. And on the other hand, if NASA opens up more, it could bring the cool and exciting side of science to youth and other educational situations. I think technology makes accessible some pretty cool stuff, and will enable even further development by placing cool scientific knowledge in an easily accessible and comfortable format such as the web.

Who knows, NASA might be able to more easily shape young minds into the next great astrophysicists - or maybe kids will be able to make something like this that actually works:

It’s really a win-win situation…