Aero-Linx!

Scouring the information super airways can sometimes be a tough, if educational, task for the Aero-News staff... but it also allows us to check out some truly neat and exciting sites, so it's not that bad a gig. On any given day, we may check dozens (and often hundreds) of different sources for story ideas, and facts confirmation. And, as is the nature of our business, much of this is done on the Internet.

The ANN gang decided we probably shouldn't keep some of the neat sites, info resources, and organizations we've discovered to ourselves... so we decided to bring you Aero-Linx. These are the sites that WE check out -- when we need added perspective, a new spin on a day's topic... or just want to escape into cyber-aero-space for awhile.

Look for some of our favorite sites, coming each day to ANN via Aero-Linx. Suggestions for future Aero-Linx segments are always welcome, as well.

Aero-Linx: NASA Flickr Commons

Here's a site we'll probably use often at ANN. Three compilations of images from more than half a century of NASA history are available for comment on a section of the photo-sharing site Flickr known as The Commons. Visitors to NASA on The Commons can help tell the photos' story by adding tags, or keywords, to the images to identify objects and people. In addition, viewers can communicate with other visitors by sharing comments. These contributions will help make the images easier to find online and add insight about NASA's history. The capability to interact with these already-public photos is the result of a partnership between NASA, Flickr from Yahoo! in Sunnyvale, CA, and Internet Archive, a non-profit digital library based in San Francisco.

FMI: www.flickr.com/photos/nasacommons