Millions Flock to NASA's Mars Web Site

Jan. 16, 2004 -- In this week's Cybershake, we note how NASA is tickled pink over the success of its robot rover on Mars — and the interest it's generating online. Plus, a new survey says there's a new power figure emerging in this year's election campaigns: the Net.

Mobbing Mars Online

NASA scientists couldn't be more pleased with the pictures being sent from its Mars rover Spirit. And the celebration isn't just among the researchers.

Jeanne Holm, chief knowledge architect at the Jet Propulsion Lab for NASA in Pasadena, Calif., says Mars fever has caught on all over the world — thanks to the World Wide Web.

"We've had a huge amount of interest [online]," says Holm. "We've had over 15 million people with 1.8 billion hits [on the NASA Web site] since [the rover's landing on] Saturday. That swamps all previous government events on the Web."

Holm says it take about 30 minutes for the pictures from Spirit to become live on the Web due to the millions of miles the signals must travel before reaching NASA's computers. But she says there's no censorship: What is seen online is exactly what NASA scientists see at JPL.

"If a Martian walked up [to the rover], we'd be more than happy to display that image right away," laughs Holm.

Eventually, all the images that Spirit and its sister rover, Opportunity, which is expected to touch down on Jan. 24, transmit will be used to create a virtual tour of the Martian landscape.

"We'll put up a video summary each week of what both Spirit, and later, Opportunity will have seen and will let people control where the rovers go — in virtual reality — not in real time," says Holm. "They'll be able to explore different rocks and see what the scientists have seen and make their own discoveries."

But Holm notes that there are plenty of other activities that will keep online visitors busy and exploring the NASA Web site. In fact, NASA is even using the Web site to encourage active participation from kids and other space exploration enthusiasts.

"We have a new feature called 'Schoolhouse Rocks' where we're asking people across the world to send in rocks from their back yards or their favorite places and we'll do the same analysis that we would as if they were on Mars," says Holm.

The results will then be posted on the Web, "so the kids can compare how their back yards compare to the surface of Mars," says Holm.

More importantly, it will give NASA scientists a wide-ranging database of Earth's geology to compare with the information gathered by the Martian rovers.

To see the pictures from Spirit, go to marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov.

For more information about the Schoolhouse Rocks program, check out marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/classroom/schoolhouse

— Larry Jacobs, ABCNEWS

(Net) Power to the People

In the current race for the presidency of the United States, candidates and American voters are seeking a new source of election power: the Internet.

A recent report by the Pew Internet and American Life Project finds that 22 percent of all Internet users have logged on to get information about campaigns during the 2002 midterm elections. In 1998, the previous midterm elections, only 15 percent of users did so.

"It is much more important than it was in the last two election cycles, and the candidates that use the Internet best are the ones that have a big advantage over others," says Lee Rainie of the Pew group. "You can't not have an Internet strategy to supplement your campaign."

Many credit the Internet savvy of campaign staffers for former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean's fast and furious rise to the position of Democratic front-runner.

— Karen Chase, ABCNEWS

Cybershake is produced for ABCNEWS Radio by Andrea J. Smith.