ARS - When NASA teamed up with Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry in 2009 to release a detailed topographic model of the Earth's surface, the groups probably didn't envision their data being used to help design levels for a snowboarding game. But that's just what happened in the development of EA Sports' SSX, which comes out today with mountain courses built on top of that public domain data set. In other words, your tax dollars helped fund part of the level design for a mass-market video game.
