YouTube Space Lab was a 2011–2012 international science competition launched by

YouTube YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second mo ...

and Lenovo, in cooperation with

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil List of government space agencies, space program ...

, European Space Agency (ESA), and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). Founded by Zahaan Bharmal of Google, the competition challenged teenagers from ages 14–18 to design an experiment to be performed on the

International Space Station The International Space Station (ISS) is the largest modular space station currently in low Earth orbit. It is a multinational collaborative project involving five participating space agencies: NASA (United States), Roscosmos (Russia), JAXA ( ...

. The global winners were Amr Mohamed from

Alexandria Alexandria ( or ; ar, ٱلْإِسْكَنْدَرِيَّةُ ; grc-gre, Αλεξάνδρεια, Alexándria) is the second largest city in Egypt, and the largest city on the Mediterranean coast. Founded in by Alexander the Great, Alexandri ...

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Medit ...

, and Dorothy Chen and Sara Ma from

Troy, Michigan Troy is a city in Oakland County, Michigan, United States. Its population was 87,294 at the 2020 U.S. census, making Troy the most populous city in the county and the 13th most-populous municipality in the state. Troy is a northern suburb of Me ...

Announcement and finalists

YouTube and Lenovo announced the YouTube Space Lab competition on 10 October 2011. Applicants were challenged to design a microgravity experiment, and submissions closed in early December. On 17 January 2012, YouTube Space Lab announced sixty finalists and started the voting process for the regional winners where over 150,000 YouTube users voted for their favorite experiments. These results were factored alongside YouTube Space Lab's panel of judges, including Stephen Hawking, William Gerstenmaier,

Leland Melvin Leland may refer to: Places United States * Leland, Illinois, a village * Leland, Iowa, a city * Leland, Michigan, an unincorporated community and census-designated place * Leland, Mississippi, a city * Leland, North Carolina, a town * Leland, O ...

, Akihiko Hoshide,

Guy Laliberté Guy Laliberté, (born 2 September 1959) is a Canadian billionaire businessman, and poker player. Along with Gilles Ste-Croix, he is the co-founder of Cirque du Soleil. In January 2018, Laliberté was ranked by ''Forbes'' as the 11th wealthiest ...

, and

Tshilidzi Marwala Tshilidzi Marwala (born 28 July 1971) is a South African artificial intelligence engineer, a computer scientist, a mechanical engineer and a university administrator. Early life and education Marwala was born at Duthuni Village in the Li ...

. Stephen Hawking, however, was unable to fully participate as a judge at this stage because of health problems, and his position was filled by colleague Paul Shellard.

Regional and global winners

Regional winners were determined by votes cast by the YouTube community factored alongside the votes cast by the competition's panel of judges. On 22 February 2012, YouTube Space Lab announced the following six regional winning teams, two from each international region: The nine contestants gathered on March in Washington, D.C., to experience a zero-gravity flight on the "

Vomit Comet A reduced-gravity aircraft is a type of fixed-wing aircraft that provides brief near-weightless environments for training astronauts, conducting research and making gravity-free movie shots. Versions of such airplanes were operated by the NAS ...

" and to tour the

Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center The Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, also called the Udvar-Hazy Center, is the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum (NASM)'s annex at Washington Dulles International Airport in the Chantilly area of Fairfax County, Virginia. It holds numerous ...

. They attended the competition award ceremony on 22 March at the

Newseum The Newseum was an American museum dedicated to news and journalism that promoted free expression and the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, while tracing the evolution of communication. The purpose of the museum, funded by the ...

, where Zahaan Bharmal announced the two winning experiments: Dorothy Chen and Sara Ma's bacteria experiment, and Amr Mohamed's jumping spider experiment. BioServe Space Technologies, from the

University of Colorado at Boulder The University of Colorado Boulder (CU Boulder, CU, or Colorado) is a public research university in Boulder, Colorado. Founded in 1876, five months before Colorado became a state, it is the flagship university of the University of Colorado sy ...

, designed the two experiments using global winners' ideas. Dorothy and Sara went to the

Tanegashima Space Center The (TNSC) is the largest rocket-launch complex in Japan with a total area of about 9.7 square kilometers. It is located on the southeast coast of Tanegashima, an island approximately south of Kyushu. It was established in 1969 when the ...

in Japan in late July to watch the

Kounotori 3 Kounotori 3 ( ja, こうのとり3号機; English: "white stork" ), also known as HTV-3, was the third flight of the Japanese H-II Transfer Vehicle. It was launched on 21 July 2012 to resupply the International Space Station (ISS) aboard the H ...

launch the winning experiments into space. Instead of attending the launch, Amr chose to later go through cosmonaut training at the

Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center The Yuri A. Gagarin State Scientific Research-and-Testing Cosmonaut Training Center (GCTC; Russian: Центр подготовки космонавтов имени Ю. А. Гагарина) is a Russian training facility responsible for trai ...

Star City, Russia Star City (russian: Звёздный городо́к, ''Zvyozdny gorodok''The name "Zvyozdny gorodok" literally means "starry townlet".) is a common name of an area in Zvyozdny gorodok, Moscow Oblast, Russia, which has since the 1960s been ...

Livestream and results

On 13 September 2012, Bill Nye hosted a live-stream interview connecting the three global winners with astronaut

Sunita Williams Sunita Lyn Williams (born September 19, 1965) is an American astronaut and United States Navy officer who formerly held the records for most spacewalks by a woman (seven) and most spacewalk time for a woman (50 hours, 40 minutes). Williams was ...

. Sunita, who had performed the experiments on the ISS, gave the preliminary results for these experiments. Dorothy and Sara had hypothesized that the ''

Bacillus subtilis ''Bacillus subtilis'', known also as the hay bacillus or grass bacillus, is a Gram-positive, catalase-positive bacterium, found in soil and the gastrointestinal tract of ruminants, humans and marine sponges. As a member of the genus ''Bacillus ...

'' would become more efficient germ-fighters in microgravity, and the initial results showed signs of growth. However, the specimens would have to be taken back to Earth for further testing. Amr's experiment examined the predatory behavior of the

jumping spider Jumping spiders are a group of spiders that constitute the family Salticidae. As of 2019, this family contained over 600 described genera and over 6,000 described species, making it the largest family of spiders at 13% of all species. Jumping spi ...

, and the ISS reported that Amr's spider, named Nefertiti and nicknamed Neffi, had successfully adapted to catch its prey in microgravity. Nefertiti returned to Earth on 30 November 2012 and lived at the O. Orkin Insect Zoo in

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

, until she died four days later. Nefertiti's traveling companion, a

zebra spider The zebra jumping spider (''Salticus scenicus'') is a common jumping spider of the Northern Hemisphere. Their common name refers to their vivid black-and-white colouration, whilst their scientific name derives from ''Salticus'' from the Latin for ...

named Cleopatra, died soon after touchdown.

References

External links

Official YouTube channel

Resources site

at NASA.gov *
Nefertiti, the Spidernaut
', children's picture book by Darcy Pattison {{YouTube navbox 2011 in science 2012 in spaceflight International Space Station experiments Lenovo Youth science YouTube