Contact: Mary Beth Murrill (818) 354-6478

VIDEO & IMAGE ADVISORY

NASA Television today will air a new computer-animated 3-D
flyover of the Los Angeles area, created with detailed mapping
data from NASA’s recent Shuttle Radar Topography Mission. The
video takes viewers zooming along a 90-mile stretch of the San
Andreas fault to the intersection of the Mojave Desert’s Garlock
fault — one of the region’s greatest quake hazards. (The tape
is also available in HDTV format — call 818-354-6478 for
details.) Stills from the video are at
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/pictures/srtm .

The February flight of the Space Shuttle carried the JPL
experiment, which used a 61-meter long (200-foot) antenna boom —
the largest structure ever extended from the Shuttle — to gather
mapping data over almost 80 percent of the Earth’s surface.

Called “the most successful science Shuttle mission ever,”
the huge amount of data returned from the Shuttle Radar
Topography Mission represents a giant leap forward in our
knowledge of Earth’s surface. The 11-day mission has produced
unrivaled 3-D images of the Earth’s surface, which will be used
for a wide variety of ecological, geological, meteorological,
sociological and civil engineering projects affecting the lives
of hundreds of millions of people for decades to come.

The new video highlights the potential of SRTM imagery to
better understand earthquakes, volcanoes and other geologic
events. The video to be shown is typical of imagery which will
be available of the entire Earth in weeks and months to come.

For updates to NASA Television’s video file schedule
throughout the day, see
ftp://ftp.hq.nasa.gov/pub/pao/tv-advisory/nasa-tv.txt

The NASA Video File normally airs at noon, 3:00 p.m., 6:00
p.m., 9:00 p.m. and midnight Eastern Time. NASA Television is
available on GE-2, transponder 9C at 85 degrees West longitude,
with vertical polarization. Frequency is on 3880.0 megahertz,
with audio on 6.8 megahertz.

For general questions about the video file, call NASA
Headquarters, Washington, D.C.: Ray Castillo 202/358-4555 or Fred
Brown 202/358-0713.

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