SAN JOSE, Calif., May 14 NASA Deputy Administrator Shana Dale announced Wednesday the launch of NASA Education TV (NASA eTV), a partnership with the National Institute of Aerospace (NIA) to produce new educational television programs for distribution on NASA Television and the Internet.

The announcement was part of Dale's keynote address at the NASA Future Forum in San Jose, Calif., where NASA and California leaders are meeting to discuss how space exploration benefits Silicon Valley, the state of California and the nation through discovery, innovation and inspiration.

"California's Silicon Valley is a launch pad for high-tech ideas and businesses, many of which were inspired by NASA scientific discoveries and technology advances," Dale said. "America's long-term space exploration goals support economic growth right here, right now in California communities, and throughout the country."

NASA eTV aims to engage young people in the excitement and challenges the future holds for America's space program. Designed for grades K-12 and young adults, the short video snippets will be available on demand through the Internet during the 2008 and 2009 school years. This will allow teachers unlimited options in the timing, sequence and pacing of the video content for greater instructional flow control.

"We realize that to sustain U.S. economic competitiveness, it is imperative that students have a solid educational foundation to be prepared for professional careers in the technologically complex 21st century," said Robert Lindberg, NIA's president and executive director. "Working jointly with NASA, NIA has developed a comprehensive approach to producing visual media that teachers will find easier to integrate into their classroom instruction."

Each NASA eTV program will consist of 5- to 10-minute video segments designed to meet identified teacher needs. The elementary school-level segments will provide a balanced introduction to the fields of science and engineering and be aligned to national education standards. The middle school-level segments will be aligned with mathematics learning standards and the relevance of math to 21st century careers. The high school-level segments will build on the engineering and science behind NASA projects and missions. The general public programs will be aimed at the 18- to 34-year-old audience and focus on the impact of space exploration, scientific discovery, aeronautics research and NASA-derived technologies on society.

The San Jose Future Forum was hosted by NASA's Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, Calif., and The Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose as part of a yearlong series of events marking NASA's 50th anniversary.

Other NASA forum participants included Ames Director S. Pete Worden, astronaut Rex Walheim, who just returned to Earth from a mission to deliver the European Space Agency's Columbus Laboratory to the International Space Station, Assistant Administrator for Education Joyce Winterton, and James Norman, director of the Constellation Systems Division in NASA's Exploration Systems Mission Directorate in Washington.

"NASA Ames is on the cutting edge of exploration," Worden said. "Here, government, businesses and learning institutions are forging partnerships to develop technologies for a new generation of space explorers. We're at the dawn of an exciting new era that will help us explore our solar system and make life on this planet and others sustainable."

The forum was sponsored by Aerojet of Sacramento, Calif., Google of Mountain View, Calif., Jacobs Technology of Tullahoma, Tenn., Lockheed Martin of Bethesda, Md., Nortel of Toronto, Canada, Microsoft Research of Redmond, Wash., Symantec of Cupertino, Calif., and Raytheon of Waltham, Mass.

For more information on NASA's 50th Anniversary Future Forums, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/50th/future_forums

For complete biographical information about Dale, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/about/highlights/dale_bio.html

For more information about the National Institute of Aerospace, visit:

http://www.nianet.org/