Title: MSFC Liftoff to Space Exploration
Developer: Mission Operations Laboratory, Marshall Space Flight Center
Date Reviewed: August 17, 1996
ObjectType: Government Agency Website
Identifier (URL): http://liftoff.msfc.nasa.gov/
Language: English
Keywords:
Content: For information on shuttle missions, both current and planned, space exploration and astronomy, the International Space Station, with interesting and in-depth descriptions of current missions, this is a particularly well-designed site. One of the bonuses of this site is the many media types, including virtual reality models of spacecraft and other objects. Exploration will soon uncover detailed information about the various projects that NASA is currently pursuing.
Authority: An official site of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the information here is of the highest quality.
Organization: Information is generally easy to find, with an effective use of frames to keep a sense of context at all times. A clearly organized hierarchical chart provides an overall view of the available information.
Currency: Information is kept up to date, particularly for the shuttle missions.
Searchability: The pages are well-organized enough so that it is usually easy to find what you are looking for, but a search engine is included as well, which returns links to pages which contain the keywords you search on.
Graphic Design: The design of these pages is particularly impressive with animated graphics and effective use of frames.
Innovative Use of the Medium: This site truly stretches the limits of the medium by providing well-designed virtual reality objects, mission timers that work with your PC to provide up-to-the-minute mission schedules, and audio and video from the spacecraft.
Audio and video feeds, graphics, text files, animations, and virtual reality worlds.
Reviewed by Boyd R. Collins on August 17, 1996.
This review is a shortened version of a review that will appear in Library
Journal magazine.