Microsoft’s online virtual telescope, WorldWide Telescope will feature the images. Under the agreement, NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California will process and host the data.

WorldWide Telescope will incorporate the data later in 2009 and feature imagery from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). Launched in August 2005, MRO has been taking pictures of Mars with a high – resolution camera and five other instruments since 2006.

Tony Hey

"This collaboration between Microsoft and NASA will enable people around the world to explore new images of the moon and Mars in a rich, interactive environment through the WorldWide Telescope," said Tony Hey, corporate vice president of Microsoft External Research in Redmond, Wash.

"WorldWide Telescope serves as a powerful tool for computer science researchers, educators and students to explore space and experience the excitement of computer science."

Also available will be images from a camera aboard NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), when publicly released this fall. Scheduled to launch in May, LRO will spend at least a year in low orbit about 30 miles above the lunar surface collecting detailed information about the lunar environment.

"NASA is excited to collaborate with Microsoft to share its portfolio of planetary images with students and lifelong learners," said S. Pete Worden, director of Ames.

"This is a compelling astronomical resource and will help inspire our next generation of astronomers."

Virgle’s goal is simple: the establishment of a permanent human settlement on Mars. Larry Page, Sergey Brin and I feel strongly that contemporary technology is sufficiently advanced to make such an effort both successful and economical, and that it’s high time that humanity moved beyond Earth and began our great, long journey to explore the stars and establish our first lasting foothold on another world.

They even offer a application to become a Virgle pioneer:

Apply to be Virgle Pioneer

Sergey and Larry even pitch the idea on YouTube video here :

They have even started a Google Groups thread on the idea:

Google Groups: Project Virgle

Lastly they layout the 100 year plan here:

The Adventure of Many Lifetimes: The 100 Year Plan

So the question is how many of us will bite? Not me!

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