Space dreams
Last summer, a breakthrough partnership was announced between NASA and Dreamtime, a Silicon Valley holdings company. Dreamtime agreed to digitize part of the agency's vast media archive — including 10 million feet of film and 40,000 hours of videotape — to provide on-demand and pay-per-view video clips at Dreamtime.com.
In addition, the pair will embark on programs to set up live, high-definition television (HDTV) broadcasts from Johnson Space Center in Houston, Kennedy Space Center in Florida, and the International Space Station (ISS). Dreamtime agreed to buy all the camera equipment for the ISS at an estimated cost of up to $100 million.This first-ever, public-private partnership for NASA was a result of a milestone piece of legislation, the 1998 Commercial Space Act. After soliciting offers for a multimedia partnership, NASA received bids from 11 other companies, including the Discovery Channel, Space Visions International and Space.com.
Dreamtime was founded by two former executives from Excite@Home just weeks before the NASA announcement. The non-exclusive contract runs seven years, with a rolling agreement beyond that.
Dreamtime's appeal to NASA lay in its revenue-generating potential for the agency. "They were an unknown entity," says Rodney Grubbs, chairman of NASA's digital television working group. "But the NASA board felt the potential for financial return might be worth the risk involved."
That financial potential remains unclear. Through a gain-sharing agreement, 25 percent of Dreamtime's shares will be set aside for NASA. By law, the agency cannot own any of the shares and does not have any controlling interest, says Bill Foster, CEO of Dreamtime. But the contract guarantees that Dreamtime provide NASA the price of those shares. If, indeed, Dreamtime files for an IPO — a decision that is at least two years away, says Foster — NASA could reap the benefits with the shares' increased value.
The first HDTV camera is set to be connected on the ISS this July. Subsequent missions will set up other cameras, while plans to provide views from inside Johnson and Kennedy Space Centers remain on hold.
Because it owns the cameras, Dreamtime holds the commercial rights to all footage recorded on the ISS. The company hopes such footage could prove profitable with pay-per-view models on its site. Although, says Foster, NASA is able to use any footage it wants for education, news and non-commercial purposes.
As for the archived NASA footage, Dreamtime is at least six months away from providing any streaming video on its site. Still, officials with the company remain optimistic that the response from viewers will be positive, once the video archive is up.
Others aren't so sure the viewer response will be so enthusiastic. "People have overestimated the market potential for viewing space-related content online," says Keith Cowing, a former NASA employee and purveyor of the watchdog site NASAwatch.com. "You can't necessarily equate box office sales of Star Wars movies to what audiences will watch online."
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