NASA’s PubSpace: How to Find Publicly Available Research

Earth’s illuminated cities trace patterns of settlement along the curved horizon. This view introduces the range of space and Earth science available through NASA’s research collections. Source.

There goes our weekend.

In August 2016, NASA announced a public portal for peer-reviewed research publications arising from agency funding, under the public-access policy described below.

At its launch, the free archive supported a NASA policy requiring covered peer-reviewed research articles to become publicly accessible within one year of publication. That deadline describes the policy announced in 2016; readers looking for a paper today should use the current repository guidance linked below.

“At NASA, we are celebrating this opportunity to extend access to our extensive portfolio of scientific and technical publications,” said NASA Deputy Administrator Dava Newman. “Through open access and innovation we invite the global community to join us in exploring Earth, air, and space.”

The database is called PubSpace, and the public can access NASA-funded research articles in it by searching for whatever they’re interested in, or by just browsing all the NASA-funded papers.

“Making our research data easier to access will greatly magnify the impact of our research,” said NASA Chief Scientist Ellen Stofan. “As scientists and engineers, we work by building upon a foundation laid by others.”

Science Alert’s 2016 report counted about 861 research articles in the database, a snapshot of the collection near its launch rather than its present size. As more research was deposited, the collection offered a growing record of the studies supported by NASA.

As you’d expect, there’s an enormous spread of research already on offer, ranging from exercise routines to maintain health during long-duration space missions, to the prospects for life on Titan, and the risk of miscarriage for flight attendants exposed to cosmic radiation.

Those archived articles were made free for researchers or anybody with an interest in science to check out and download – a welcome change from when much of the content was locked behind a paywall.

But not all NASA-funded research can be found in the archive. As the space agency indicates, patents and material governed by personal privacy, proprietary, or security laws are exempt from having to be included in PubSpace.

NASA’s move comes in response to a 2013 request from the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, which directed major science-funding agencies to come up with ways of increasing access to the results of publicly funded research.

It also follows a growing general trend towards more openness in science research and academia more broadly. With frustration stemming over the commercial control wielded by the companies who own most academic publishing, some researchers are bypassing established journals altogether by uploading their work directly to the internet.

Others are illegally sharing scientific papers online in a dramatic bid to spread knowledge. At the same time, there are calls in Europe to make all published science funded by the public free.

The same logic is what’s behind NASA’s then-new portal – but even the space agency itself could benefit from the initiative, which will help it keep track of all the research it’s funding more easily.

“This’ll be the first time that NASA’s had all of their publications in one place, so we estimate what our publication rate is for the agency, but this will actually be able to tell us what it is,” NASA Deputy Chief Scientist Gale Allen told Samantha Ehlinger at FedScoop. “And we’ll be able to show even further what we’re doing with taxpayer dollars.”

Source: Science Alert

What changed when PubSpace launched

NASA announced PubSpace in 2016 as a portal for peer-reviewed scholarly publications arising from NASA-funded research. The policy described at launch called for public access within a year of publication.

The announcement covered scholarly publications within the policy’s scope; it did not make every NASA-funded output available immediately or settle the access conditions for every kind of research material. Research articles, underlying data, software and other technical material can have different access arrangements.

Where the collection lives now

According to NASA’s current PubSpace guidance, the collection moved from PubMed Central to the NASA Technical Reports Server, or NTRS, in November 2022.

NTRS contains a wider range of scientific and technical records, with PubSpace identified as a collection within it. A link to PubMed Central can still lead to a particular archived paper, while NTRS provides the PubSpace collection’s current home. When a link reaches an old landing page, searching NTRS by the paper’s title or DOI offers a more direct route to its record.

The record is worth reading even before opening a file. Its title, authors, publication details and links help establish whether you have found the exact work mentioned in an article.

A useful search sequence

1. Start with the full paper title, author name or DOI from the source article.
2. Compare the returned record with those details, including the publication year.
3. Look for an available full-text file or publisher link, and note which version it provides.
4. Read the abstract, then the methods and limitations relevant to your question.

A metadata record is not itself a full paper. An accepted manuscript may also look different from the publisher’s final typeset version, even when it communicates the same research.

Access and reuse answer different questions

Being able to read a paper does not automatically allow unrestricted reuse of every figure or third-party image inside it. Check the rights statement for the work you want to reproduce.

This is particularly helpful when moving between research papers and Apollo photographic archives, where mission images, scans and accompanying website material can have different credits and contexts.

Try the approach with a topic such as estimates of Earth-sized planets in the Milky Way. Following a headline back to the research can reveal the assumptions behind a memorable number—and often a more interesting question than the headline had room to ask.

Additional source and image references: Earth’s curved horizon with illuminated cities at night

NASA has since dropped the one-year delay

The one-year embargo described above no longer applies to new NASA-funded work. NASA’s public access plan, first dated February 21, 2023 and updated on November 15, 2024, states that “there shall be no publication embargo period for peer-reviewed publications” and that the previous 12-month embargo “is now removed”. Researchers are asked to deposit their NASA-funded papers in the PubSpace collection of the NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS). The plan covers proposals and projects submitted after it took effect, so older papers may still follow the earlier rules.

Sources: NASA Public Access Plan (updated November 15, 2024)

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