Description

This article is from the Space FAQ, by Jon Leech leech@cs.unc.edu and Mark Bradford tla@surly.org with numerous contributions by others.

06 Online and other sources of images, data, etc. introduction (Space FAQ)

A wide variety of images, data, catalogs, information releases, and
other material dealing with space and astronomy may be found on the net.
The sources with the broadest selection of material are the NASA Ames
SPACE archive and the National Space Science Data Center (described
below).

A few sites offer direct dialup access or remote login access, while
others offer file transfer over the Internet (referred to as 'anonymous
FTP'). Sites not connected to the Internet cannot use FTP directly, but
there are a few automated FTP servers which operate via email. Send mail
containing only the word HELP to ftpmail@decwrl.dec.com,
bitftp@pucc.princeton.edu, or ftpmail@doc.ic.ac.uk, and the servers will
send you instructions on how to make requests.

Shorthand for a specific file or directory at an anonymous FTP site is

ftp://sitename/pathname[/]

(e.g. ftp://explorer.arc.nasa.gov/pub/SPACE/). The format has been
changed to valid URLs for users of the World Wide Web. If you are using
a normal FTP client, you will connect to the sitename part of the URL
(explorer.arc.nasa.gov, in this case) and get the file specified by the
pathname (/pub/SPACE/Index). If a '/' terminates the URL, it indicates a
directory containing multiple files.

 

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science, engineering, space, Landsat, NASA, planetary maps, solar system, astronauts, shuttle, planetary probe, acronyms