YouTube Space Lab to Put Students’ Work into Orbit

Your idea, in space. That is the main thrust behind a new contest from YouTube and Lenovo that offers a grand prize like no other: winners will see their experiments performed live on the International Space Station.

The YouTube SpaceLab project, which launched this week, is a new one-of-a-kind competition for high school students aimed at getting teenagers more interested in science. Students ages 14 to 18 can submit their experiments on biology and physics to the contest to an all-star panel of judges including world-renowned scientist Stephen Hawking.

Other judges include NASA administrators William Gerstenmaier and Leland Melvin, European Space Agency astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Akihito Hoshide and Cirque du Soleil founder Guy Laliberte. Zahaan Bharmal, Google’s head of marketing for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, said all of the judges were excited to participate in the contest and motivate the next generation of scientists.