Beth Schmid
Headquarters, Washington, DC               March 13, 1997
(Phone:  202/358-1760)

RELEASE:  97-41

NASA'S NEW NO-COST E-MAIL NOTIFIES
VENDORS ABOUT UPCOMING CONTRACTS

     NASA has taken another step forward in contracting practices 
with its new, no-cost electronic notification for vendors.  The 
service follows another recent initiative by NASA, posting 
acquisitions on the Internet.  

     For more than a year now, NASA has been posting all 
opportunities for competitive acquisitions over $25,000 on the 
Internet.  Vendors have been able to download NASA solicitations 
from the NASA Acquisition Internet Service (NAIS) website at URL:

               http://procurement.nasa.gov

     Vendors can now sign up for the types of business 
opportunities at NASA in which they are interested or the NASA 
Center with which they want to work, and relevant information is 
sent directly to their e-mail accounts.

     "We are very excited about this next step in our NASA 
Acquisition Internet Service.  This should help contractors of any 
size, anywhere, that want to do business with NASA," said Deidre 
A. Lee, Associate Administrator for Procurement.  "We've made it 
as easy as we can.  All they have to do is sign up and we'll send 
them the information," she said.

     The process is simple.  Anyone interested in receiving NASA 
procurement announcements can go to the website at URL:

               http://procurement.nasa.gov/maillist.html

     From there, companies or individuals answer a few questions, 
mainly identifying the types of contracts in which they are 
interested.  Within minutes they are on the system.  Any 
procurement announcement that matches their specific areas of 
interests will be sent immediately upon its release.  These 
announcements include advance procurement notices, solicitation 
releases, post-award notices, and other general procurement 
notices.  The e-mail also will tell them where to look on the 
World Wide Web to get the full solicitation and any other 
information available.

     The NAIS provides a host of services designed to help people 
interested in doing business with NASA.  Along with the 
procurement announcements and solicitations, the NAIS also 
provides online access to acquisition forecasts, active contract 
data, small business assistance, the NASA Federal Acquisition 
Regulations Supplement, and links to other federal procurement 
sites on the Internet.

                         -end-