Nine Indian students strike it big at SpaceLab

After the victory at a NASA project, nine Indian students have made it big at the YouTube's SpaceLab. This was a global science competition that challenged 14-18 year-olds to design a science experiment that can be performed in space.

Hyderabad-based Nitya Raju, a finalist who participated in the 14-16 year-old category told the Business Standard, "My video shows a simple experiment to determine how liquids of different viscousities behave variously under microgravity. While most have seen the shapes water can assume when floating in a space shuttle, I'm curious about how the viscosity of a liquid affects its form." (Read more here)

The competition was hosted by YouTube, Lenovo, and Space Adventures in cooperation with space agencies, including NASA, European Space Agency, and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, YouTube Space Lab received thousands of videos from 80 countries.

The level of competition and presentation was set very high as the students demonstrated and animated the procedures. The YouTube community will be invited to judge the entries, alongside judges including scientist Stephen Hawking and former astronaut Leland Melvin.

Indian students are among the 60 finalists in this global science competition. If they win, their experiments will be conducted in space with the help of NASA, ESA and JAXA.

Six regional winners will be announced in February, who will gather in Washington, DC, in March to experience a ZERO-G (zero gravity) flight. They will also be given a Lenovo IdeaPad laptop, as per a statement.

Winners will get to choose a unique space experience: A trip to Japan to watch their experiment blast off in a rocket bound for the ISS or, once they are 18, astronaut training in Star City, Russia, the training centre for cosmonauts. (Read more here)

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