Bang! Zoom! Google Goes to the Moon and Mars

The NASA Ames Research Center and Google announced Monday that they had signed a formal agreement to collaborate on a broad set of projects that could include virtual flyovers of the Moon and Mars, and other initiatives that will make NASA’s vast trove of space and weather data widely available on the Internet.

“This is going to bring the excitement of space travel” to a wider audience, said S. Pete Worden, director of the Ames Research Center, near Google’s headquarters in Mountain View, Calif.

Mr. Worden said that as the space agency pursued new manned space missions, the technology-sharing agreement might enable people everywhere to feel the crunch of an astronaut’s step as he walked on the surface of the Moon or even Mars.

The collaboration may also allow the public to track space shuttle flights or the International Space Station in real time. The signing of a Space Act Agreement formalizes a planned collaboration announced in September 2005. Still, Google and NASA spoke of possible joint projects only in broad outlines.

Among them was the possibility that, using data from NASA, Google will develop products that work like Google Earth for the Moon and other planets. Google Earth is a software program allowing users to view a three-dimensional image of the world and then zoom in to specific areas for close-up views.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/19/technology/19google.html?_r=1&ref=technology&oref=slogin