NASA has selected Dreamtime Holdings to form a partnership to provide high-definition television coverage of astronaut activities on the International Space Station (ISS) and during Space Shuttle missions. The partnership will also create a state-of-the-art multimedia portal, www.Dreamtime.com.
The site will provide access to images, sounds, documents, blueprints and plans from NASA's "underused archives", says the agency. The space content, including popular and educational space documentary coverage and live coverage of Shuttle launches, will also be available via radio and TV.
Much of the content is available on NASA websites, but the Dreamtime link will widen use, fullfilling some of the aims of the 1998 Commercial Space Act, which encouraged NASA to seek commercial users of its services, including the ISS.
Dreamtime, which with commercial partners, including Lockheed Martin, will provide "fly-on- the-wall" coverage of activities on the ISS, may not be the only commercial company to provide NASA images and multimedia products since its agreement is non-exclusive. Spacehab plans to attach a module, Enterprise, to the ISS as a broadcast studio. The module, built by Russia's Energia, will cost $100 million and be operated by a joint Spacehab-Energia company, Space Media. Enterprise will broadcast TV images and provide internet material. Spacehab has exclusive rights to Russian and former Soviet space archives.
Source: Flight International
