Thaindian News

WASHINGTON, D.C. (BNO NEWS) — NASA on Friday announced that three compilations of images from more than half a century of its history are now available for view and comment on a section of the photo-sharing site Flickr known as The Commons.

Visitors to NASA on The Commons, which refers to the collectively owned images since they are shared among visitors and are “held in common,” will be able to interact with each other through comments and help tell the photos’ story by adding tags, or keywords, to the images to identify objects and people.

A NASA-Flickr partnership, along with Internet Archive, a non-profit digital library based in San Francisco, will make this interactivity with these already-public photos possible.

Three sets of photos share a common theme of NASA beginnings: the “Launch and Takeoff” set captures iconic spacecraft and aircraft taking flight; “Building NASA” spotlights ground-breaking events and the construction of some of NASA’s one-of-a-kind facilities; and the “Center Namesakes” set features photos of the founders and figureheads of NASA’s 10 field centers.

“NASA’s long-standing partnership with Internet Archive and this new one with Yahoo!’s Flickr provides an opportunity for the public to participate in the process of discovery,” said Debbie Rivera, lead for the NASA Images project at the agency’s headquarters in Washington. “In addition, the public can help the agency capture historical knowledge about missions and programs through this new resource and make it available for future generations.”

The Commons was launched with the Library of Congress to increase access to publicly-held photography collections and provide a way for the public to contribute information and knowledge.

New photo sets will be continued to be created and released, highlighting different elements, themes or achievements.