For Release: Sept. 4, 1996

Steve Roy
Office of Media Services
(205) 544-0034
steve.roy@msfc.nasa.gov

RELEASE: 96-162

SPACE SCIENCE LAB’S NEW LOOK ON INTERNET

To lure the science lover as well as the scientist into its web, the Marshall Center’s Space Sciences Laboratory is reinventing its Internet site.

The new pages capture you with colorful graphics, easy-to-read stories, catchy headlines, simple site navigation, human interest tidbits and science tutorials.

"The Web is the up-and-coming, science-literate communications channel," said Dr. Gregory S. Wilson, director of the Space Sciences Laboratory. "It’s a good way to work with tens of millions of people. We want to get to the hard-core science literate and to keep our site as a public service where those who are interested can see what we are currently doing and learn about our accomplishments."

To achieve that, the site had to be drastically altered, he said. Articles not specifically geared to science professionals needed to be written in less technical language while retaining the heart of why the topics have scientific importance. Eye-appeal had to be enhanced and links promoting better navigation introduced.

To accomplish this, the lab’s Science Communications Roundtable, a group of 12 or so volunteers, was charged with finding better ways to communicate the lab’s work and achievements both to scientists and the public. It gleaned ideas for the new homepage from those of such Internet communications masters as the Disney and Discovery Channels, and cruised the web. And they got advice from Dr. Debbie Treise, a University of Florida at Gainesville communications professor, serving in the lab as part of Marshall’s visiting faculty program.

The revised Web product "is just one part of our overall effort to improve our science communications in accordance with our mandate from the NASA Strategic Plan," said Dr. John Horack, temporary coordinator of communications.

With 12 different kinds of science being conducted by the lab, discoveries and intriguing science discussions are daily fare. Wilson wants the lab’s Web connection to stimulate scientific exchange and to communicate researchers’ accomplishments and why these accomplishments are relevant to our daily lives.

Media interested in the Space Sciences Laboratory home page may access the Marshall Center Internet address at http://www.msfc.nasa.gov/ then connect to space sciences at http://wwwssl.msfc.nasa.gov/