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Release: 00-323

NASA Marshall Center science Web site becomes bilingual

A leading NASA Web site is speaking a new language — Spanish.

The site, located at http://science.nasa.gov is adding the second language to give more people access to its science, math and space news. It is one of the Science@nasa family of NASA Web sites operated be NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., and covers a variety of space-related subjects in simple terms everyone can understand. It answers such questions as why penguins rejoice, what's in the heart of a hurricane, what is space weather, and what's that bright star in the evening sky.

"If you look at the demographics in our country, Spanish is far and away the number-two language," said Ron Koczor, the NASA manager responsible for the site. According to the 1990 census, more than 17 million Americans — approximately 7.5% percent of the population — speak Spanish.

In reaching out to Hispanic readers, Koczor also hopes to help students and educators. "Some U.S. schools, especially in the inner cities, have large populations of Spanish-speaking students," he said. "We want to give these students access to high-quality science information by communicating in their primary language."

In the process, Spanish- and English-speaking students alike can build their skills with both languages while learning more about science and NASA. For example, students can compare the same story in both languages as part of a translation exercise.

The addition of Spanish content is part of a site redesign unveiled this month and follows the addition of audio versions of the science stories added during October. Along with a new look, the new format now offers articles organized by subject matter, such as astronomy, living in space, earth science or biology. The Spanish version of this site will be found at http://ciencia.msfc.nasa.gov.

The family of Web sites that includes http://science.nasa.gov, averages more than 30 million hits a month.