The scientist earned a free iPad, Soderstrom said.

Today, JPL's 5,000 employees are allowed to use any mobile device or tablet they want, as long as the agency has first secured it with a VPN.

Soderstrom sees a remarkable opportunity for mobile applications, the cloud, and "big data" analytics/business intelligence tools that can cull through massive data stores for statistically relevant information.

Today's statistical analysts will be tomorrow's most valuable assets, he said.

Over the past three years, NASA has been putting more and more data onto cloud infrastructures, both internal and with service providers.