NASA’s Tangled Human Spaceflight Web Presence

One night in January I got frustrated trying to find something on NASA’s Human Spaceflight website(s). So, I decided to map them. As you can see from this chart (enlarge), NASA’s HSF web presence – like much of NASA’s sprawling cyber infrastructure – is an unorganized mess.

Yet despite this convoluted web structure, people often manage to find things simply because a lot of what NASA does is so compellingly cool. People find this stuff despite the convoluted and confused way that NASA organizes things (Google).

As I have already noted, most missions at NASA have two, often three (or more)official websites and addresses. The websites are often out of synch with each other and yet also duplicative – at the same time. NASA also has multiple entry points for the same topic, dead ends, and pages that reflect programs that are dead.

I sent this chart over to NASA. They agreed: its a mess. 5 months later. No change. So I thought I’d share it with y’all.

NASA’s Inability To Speak With One Voice Online, earlier post