[Satellite Today 03-04-09] Cisco Inc. and NASA have formed a partnership to develop an online collaborative global monitoring system, called the Planetary Skin, to capture, collect, analyze and report data on environmental conditions around the world, Cisco announced Mar. 2.
    Under the terms of the Space Act Agreement, NASA and Cisco will work together to develop the Planetary Skin to be an online collaborative platform to capture and analyze data from satellite, airborne, sea- and land-based sensors across the globe. This data will then be made available for the general public, governments and businesses to measure, report and verify environmental data in near-real-time to help them detect and adapt to global climate change.
    Over the last 20 years, NASA has invested approximately $25 billion in Earth science research.