Flickr heads into space with NASA, asks web users to tag the journey

(2010 Yahoo! All rights reserved.)

Photo-sharing website Flickr and NASA have teamed up to launch three interactive public photo galleries with photos from NASA’s archives.

The images explore more than half a century of NASA’s photographic history.

The photos are hosted in a section of Flickr known as The Commons; a section of the website that aims "to increase access to publicly-held photography collections and provide a way for the public to contribute information and knowledge."

Visitors to Flickr’s NASA on The Commons’ photostream are invited to comment on, add keywords, identify people and add tags to the photos - actions which NASA hopes will create and nurture a shared history of humans’ exploration of space.

"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 publicly available images are separated into three categories: "Launch and Takeoff," "Building NASA" and "Center Namesakes."

Additional images and photosets are expected to be added to Flickr’s The Commons in the future to highlight historic moments and some of NASA’s most notable achievements.

The three photosets are available from http://www.flickr.com/photos/nasacommons while additional images from NASA’s photo archives can be found on http://www.nasaimages.org/.