This is a hoax. The article reproduced there does exist though: it was published in an artificial intelligence journal in 1985 and made no reference to NASA, except for the fact that the author worked at the NASA Ames Research Center. You can find it there: http://www.aaai.org/ojs/index.php/aimagazine/article/view/46...
A quick search on internet for "sanskrit nasa" shows that all occurences are either copies, extracts or translations of this article taken out of its context. The belief that NASA has used sanskrit seems to come from this internet echo chamber.
I could find no reference about it on any NASA website, nor any other articles written by this Rick Briggs. I was able to find only one other article on sanskrit and AI, quoting the one by Briggs, dated to 1987: http://www.cedar.buffalo.edu/~srihari/papers/KRIS87.pdf
This is a hoax. The article reproduced there does exist though: it was published in an artificial intelligence journal in 1985 and made no reference to NASA, except for the fact that the author worked at the NASA Ames Research Center. You can find it there: http://www.aaai.org/ojs/index.php/aimagazine/article/view/46...
A quick search on internet for "sanskrit nasa" shows that all occurences are either copies, extracts or translations of this article taken out of its context. The belief that NASA has used sanskrit seems to come from this internet echo chamber.
I could find no reference about it on any NASA website, nor any other articles written by this Rick Briggs. I was able to find only one other article on sanskrit and AI, quoting the one by Briggs, dated to 1987: http://www.cedar.buffalo.edu/~srihari/papers/KRIS87.pdf