(1 October 2005 9:00 pm)

MUMBAI: The world's most valuable media company Google will be teaming up with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa).

They will build the Nasa Research Park, a million-square-foot facility within Nasa's Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley.

The two parties signed an MoU that outlines plans for co-operation in a variety of areas, including large-scale data management, massively distributed computing, bio-info-nano convergence and encouragement of the entrepreneurial space industry.

Located on property at Ames Research Center, NASA Research Park is being developed into a world-class, shared-use educational and R&D campus. As part of a plan for this area, new laboratories, offices, classrooms, housing, auditoriums, museums, a training and conference center, open space, parking and limited retail facilities are envisioned.

The plan calls for Nasa to partner with local communities, academia, private industry, non-profit organisations and other government agencies in support of Nasa's mission to conduct research and develop new technologies

Nasa Ames Center director G. Scott Hubbard said, "Our planned partnership presents an enormous range of potential benefits to the space program. Just a few examples are new sensors and materials from collaborations on bio-info-nano convergence, improved analysis of engineering problems, as well as Earth, life and space science discoveries from supercomputing and data mining, and bringing entrepreneurs into the space programme. While our joint efforts will benefit both organisations, the real winner will be the American public.”

Google CEO Eric Schmidt says, “Google and Nasa share a common desire-to bring a universe of information to people around the world. Imagine having a wide selection of images from the Apollo space mission at your fingertips whenever you want it. That's just one small example of how this collaboration could help broaden technology's role in making the world a better place.”

Mountain View Mayor Matt Neely said, "The City of Mountain View is excited that two of our community's most innovative and dynamic organizations, Google and Nasa Ames Research Center, are forming a new research-and-development partnership at Ames. This new collaboration will undoubtedly result in new research projects and endeavors with tremendous potential for innovation and far-reaching benefit".