NASA will take a giant leap for humankind when the first
commercially provided and flight-certified high definition
television (HDTV) camera, which will provide more visual clarity of
space activities, rides aboard Space Shuttle Discovery to become a
permanent resident on the International Space Station. Discovery is
currently scheduled for launch on Aug. 9.

High tech cameras and equipment are a prime benefit of the
multimedia agreement between NASA and Dreamtime Holdings, Inc.,
Mountain View, CA. NASA partnered with Dreamtime on May 17, 2000,
to collaborate on a variety of multimedia-related services and
products.

The partnership, in response to the Commercial Space Act of 1998,
is officially termed “The NASA/Dreamtime Agreement for the
Collaboration on Multimedia” and was negotiated to maximize NASA’s
existing multimedia assets and enhance the agency’s television
infrastructure.

“This will be the beginning of a return on the NASA/Dreamtime
investment,” said Joe Rothenberg, NASA Associate Administrator for
Space Flight. “It marks a big milestone on the road to telling the
NASA story in a new and different way.”

This HDTV camera will provide high resolution images for
documentation of space activities and for enhancement of data
collected by NASA scientists, researchers and engineers conducting
experiments. Imagery will be accessible to the news media and to
the general public through the Internet and other distribution
methods.

The camera hardware includes a Sony HDW-700A HDTV camera, telephoto
lens, wide-angle lens, battery packs and tapes. The accompanying
batteries can be recharged in orbit, enabling continuous
documentation of station activities.

Although HDTV cameras have flown aboard other space shuttle
missions, the NASA/Dreamtime camera is the first to go through
flight certification for the International Space Station. This
process also makes this the first commercially certified HDTV
camera, that is, certified at no cost to the taxpayer.

“Our partner, Lockheed Martin, did an incredible job developing new
systems to certify the camera in record time,” said Bill Foster,
CEO of Dreamtime. “Images from this camera have five times the
clarity of a standard digital camera. Not only will it be able to
document space from a new perspective, it also will allow our
partners to record in real time the science of space.”

HDTV cameras and equipment both for on-orbit installation and use
at NASA Field Centers are among many benefits Dreamtime expects to
deliver. In addition, the partnership, through Dreamtime efforts,
will digitize a significant portion of NASA imagery and create a
multimedia database that will allow greater public access to basic
research capabilities and free downloads of low resolution versions
of those images. It also will help enhance public awareness of NASA
by developing documentaries and educational programming for
television broadcast.