Q. Let's talk about the significance that NSF cyberinfrastructure programs have for average citizens. What impact do these systems and related efforts have on
my mom and dad?
A. There are many levels to that question, but I think the best example for people,
though they may not know it, is
Mosaic coming out of NCSA. That's a beautiful story of something that came out of NCSA in the early days that blossomed into the
total revolution in the way we all access information.
[Author's note: Mosaic was the first widely used graphical Web browser. It led to Netscape, Internet Explorer, and the broad use of the Web for communications and commerce.]
On a more scientific level, a way NSF's cyberinfrastructure programs affect the public would be hurricane projections. There are lots of studies that show that even if there is no destruction, hurricanes cost millions of dollars just for evacuations. If hurricanes were forecast more reliably, we would better know to evacuate some areas and not others.
In the case of Katrina, if we'd had more information in advance [through better, simulation-based hurricane forecasting], potentially we could have saved thousands of lives and millions and millions, even billions, of dollars. The insurance industry would be less hard hit, recovery would be faster, and so on.
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