Nasa Administrator Announces

Google Inc. and NASA Ames Research Center said they have finalized an agreement to provide more images of the space agency and information through the search engine of the leading Internet.

The collaboration marks another step in a partnership announced 15 months ago when Google unveiled plans to build a campus one million square feet at NASA center, located a few miles south of the Mountain View company headquarters.

Under the arrangement, Ames will feed Google with its weather forecasting information, three-dimensional maps of the Moon and Mars, and real-time tracking of the International Space Station and space shuttle flights so the pictures and data are available to anyone with an Internet connection.

Google is already reaping some of NASA images to provide Internet users with interactive tours of Mars as part of a service to nine months.

This agreement between NASA and Google will soon allow every American to experience a virtual flight over the surface of the moon or through the canyons of Mars, NASA administrator Michael Griffin said in a statement.

Ames and Google have also promised to work together to solve complex computational problems, including management of large-scale data.

"Partnering with NASA made sense for Google because it has a wealth of technical expertise and data that will be of great use to Google as we seek to solve many computer problems on behalf of our users "Google, Eric Schmidt, CEO said in a statement.