  The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) is collecting photometry and intermediate
resolution spectra for ~ 10**5 stars in the thick-disk and stellar halo of the
Milky Way. This massive dataset can be used to infer the properties of the
stars that make up these structures, and considerably deepen our vision of the
old components of the Galaxy. We devise tools for automatic analysis of the
SDSS photometric and spectroscopic data based on plane-parallel line-blanketed
LTE model atmospheres and fast optimization algorithms. A preliminary study of
about 5000 stars in the Early Data Release gives a hint of the vast amount of
information that the SDSS stellar sample contains.
