Get Lost in Space

Not the normal command from parents to their teenagers when dealing with homework, but once parents hear about this cool YouTube, Lenovo and Space Adventures partnership they’ll be working to convince their progeny to get on the world’s largest online video community.

Space agencies (including the Canadian Space Agencie, NASA, the European Space Agency and others) have partnered to announce YouTube Space Lab, a worldwide initiative that challenges 14-18 year old students to design a science experiment that can be performed in space.

A prestigious panel of scientists (including Stephen Hawking) will judge the entries with input from the YouTube community. The two winning experiments will be conducted aboard the International Space Station (ISS) and live streamed on YouTube.

“As a company committed to the next generation of scientists, YouTube launched Space Lab to allow ordinary students the extraordinary opportunity of having their experiment carried out in space,” said Zhaan Bharmal, Google’s Head of Marketing Operations, Europe, Middle East and Africa and the man behind the idea of Space Lab.

Students in two age categories, 14-16 years old and 17-18 years old, either alone or in groups of up to three, may submit a YouTube video describing their experiment. The two-minute videos can be submitted between now and December 7, and though only two experiments will be chosen to be conducted, there are many more prizes including ZERO-G flights and Lenovo IdeaPad laptops.

So, do you have a teenager who would rather be watching videos on YouTube than doing his science homework? Share this project with him, and he may be inspired to do both!