NASA Astronaut to Name Global Winners in YouTube Space Lab Contest

[NASA News <hqnews@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

March 21, 2012

Joshua Buck 
Headquarters, Washington 
202-358-1100 
jbuck@xxxxxxxx 

MEDIA ADVISORY: M12-047

NASA ASTRONAUT TO NAME GLOBAL WINNERS IN YOUTUBE SPACE LAB CONTEST

WASHINGTON -- NASA astronaut Suni Williams will announce Thursday the 
two winners of the YouTube Space Lab contest, a global science 
competition that challenges 14-18 year-old students to design a 
science experiment for the International Space Station. The awards 
ceremony will be held at 10 a.m. EDT in the Newseum's Knight Room at 
555 Pennsylvania Ave. N.W. in Washington. 

Thousands of individuals and teams from more than 80 countries entered 
the competition to have their experiment flown in space. Williams 
will perform the two winning YouTube Space Lab contest experiments 
250 miles above Earth during the Expedition 32 and 33 missions on the 
space station later this year. 

A team of judges, including William Gerstenmaier, associate 
administrator for NASA's Human Exploration Mission Directorate, and 
Leland Melvin, associate administrator for NASA's Office of Education 
and a former astronaut, selected 60 finalists. Online voting chose 
the final six. Gerstenmaier will introduce the finalists in the 17-18 
year-old category at the awards ceremony. 

Members of the media who wish to attend the ceremony can RSVP online 
at: 

http://bit.ly/GzGXWx 

The 2005 NASA Authorization Act designated the U.S. segment of the 
space station as a national laboratory and directed NASA to develop a 
plan to "increase the utilization of the ISS by other Federal 
entities and the private sector." As the nation's newest national 
laboratory, the station further strengthens relationships among NASA, 
other Federal entities, and private sector leaders in the pursuit of 
national priorities for the advancement of science, technology, 
engineering and mathematics. The International Space Station National 
Laboratory is opening new paths for the exploration and economic 
development of space. As these activities are ramping up, contests 
like the YouTube Space Lab are important components of an integrated 
strategy to inspire the next generation of explorers and scientists 
using the orbiting outpost. 

For information about the contest and to see the proposals from the 60 
finalists, visit: 

http://www.youtube.com/spacelab 

For information about the International Space Station, visit: 

http://www.nasa.gov/station 

For more information about Expedition 32 and 33, visit: 

http://go.nasa.gov/Expedition32 

and 

http://go.nasa.gov/Expedition33 

	
-end-



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