NASA, Dreamtime Partnership Propels Space Information Age to New Heights

Peggy Wilhide/Brian Welch
Headquarters, Washington, DC
(Phone: 202/358-1600)

RELEASE: 00-87

NASA and Dreamtime Holdings, Inc., have formed a partnership
that will deliver the adventures of the space frontier through the
new technologies of the digital frontier.

The unprecedented agreement was announced today at NASA’s
Ames Research Center, in the heart of California’s Silicon Valley.
It includes provisions to provide, for the first time, high-
definition television coverage of astronaut activities aboard the
International Space Station and on Space Shuttle missions. It
will also create an easily accessible, Web-searchable, digital
archive of the best of NASA’s space imagery.

“Not only does this bring the space program into partnership
with Silicon Valley,” said NASA Administrator Daniel S. Goldin,
“but the partnership also puts NASA at the forefront of the
information age. This is innovative government at its best.”

The NASA-Dreamtime partnership will provide unprecedented
public access to space exploration by creating a state-of-the-art
multimedia portal, www.Dreamtime.com, that will, with the click of
a mouse, open the door to thousands of images, sounds, documents,
blueprints and plans from NASA’s currently underused archives.
Roll out of the in-depth portal site will begin within the next
several months.

The unparalleled space content will be accessible via Web,
wireless, TV and interactive TV devices. Shuttle launches will
light up handheld computers, and school children will be able to
watch compelling interactive space programming on TV and the Web.

“Our goal of engaging more Americans in the exploration of
space will be made possible through this partnership,” Goldin
said.

“We’re proud to be partnered with NASA in this historic
undertaking,” said Bill Foster, Dreamtime’s Chairman and CEO. “To
us, space is the great adventure, and this is the perfect marriage
of high tech and high emotion. The opportunity to educate and
excite is at the heart of this venture.”

The NASA-Dreamtime partnership will also provide the agency
with high-definition television capability that will give NASA
engineers and scientists the most detailed look ever at Shuttle
flight operations and at scientific experiments conducted on the
Shuttle and on the International Space Station.

Education plays a prominent roll throughout the agreement.
Educational content planned in the documentaries and TV broadcasts
will be linked to educational modules in the portal.

“We plan to vividly convey the space experience into
classrooms and living rooms across America,” Foster said. “This
partnership intends to explain the complexities of space in an
interesting, entertaining and educational way.”

The partnership’s first priority will be to create the
Dreamtime.com portal, which will offer the latest in interactive
technology. The portal will be designed to provide more complete
and in-depth access to information about space by combining video,
audio, still photographs, high-resolution images, historical
documents and three-dimensional views of spacecraft such as the
Mars Sojourner and the Hubble Space Telescope. The portal’s
invigorating content will also include space topic-related
bulletin boards, educational activities and games, chat rooms and
e-cards.

Dreamtime’s commercial partners in this venture include the
Endeavor Agency, Excite@Home, Lockheed-Martin, Sumitomo Bank and
Omnicom. Carleton Ruthling will serve as Dreamtime’s president
and COO. Nancy Conrad, widow of former Apollo astronaut Pete
Conrad, is the first person to join Dreamtime’s Board of
Directors. Dreamtime headquarters will be in leased space located
at NASA’s Ames Research Center.

The U.S. Congress declared commercial utilization to be one
of the primary goals of the U.S. Space Program when it passed the
1998 Commercial Space Act and directed NASA to actively seek
commercial users for the International Space Station. Congress
asked NASA to conduct an independent market study to help identify
potential commercial uses. One of the most promising commercial
markets identified by the study was to utilize space imagery in
the areas of education and entertainment.

NASA publicly solicited offers for commercial collaboration
from the public in December 1999, stating its intent to partner
with the private sector to create new market opportunities in the
multimedia arena. Dreamtime was selected from 12 offers based on
criteria published in the announcement. The term of the agreement
between NASA and Dreamtime is for seven years with a five-year
option.

The Dreamtime partnership maintains NASA’s ability to offer
the public its current level of services and does not preclude the
agency from participating in other private sector partnerships.