Science@NASA: Direct to People via the Internet

NASA's founding charter includes the requirement for reporting all research results to the public. This requirement is based on the principle that the exploration of space results in real benefits to humanity and that those benefits are to be shared as widely as practical. When NASA was founded, the traditional education and outreach methods were through the news media and the formal and informal (museums, planetariums, exhibits, etc.) educational communities. With the nearly ubiquitous availability of the Internet, a third choice presents itself: communicating directly with individuals in their homes. This powerful approach offers benefits and pitfalls that must be addressed to be effective. This paper covers an integrated approach to providing high quality NASA research information to multiple audiences via a family of websites. The paper will discuss the content generation, review, and production process and provide metrics on evaluating the results.