Thursday: Watch Bill Nye Host YouTube SpaceLab Webcast

Posted by Mat Kaplan

2012/09/11 04:55 CDT

Topics: citizen science, events and announcements, podcasts and videos, fun, International Space Station, life

Dorothy Chen, Sara Ma and Amr Mohamed may be the luckiest young people on, or off, Earth. On Thursday, September 13, they'll be with Planetary Society CEO Bill Nye the Science Guy in London to watch their science experiments being conducted on the International Space Station. You can watch the live YouTube SpaceLab webcast right here at 3:50pm in London/10:50am EDT/7:50am PDT (UPDATED TIMES!).

Amr of Alexandria, Egypt won the EMEA (Europe Middele East Africa) competition with his test of whether zebra spiders will adapt their hunting tactics to microgravity. Americans Dorothy and Sara are investigating whether a variety of compounds and nutrients block baterial growth differently in zero-G.

After interviewing the winners, Bill and the young scientists will work with ISS astronaut Sunita Williams as she runs their experiments.

I talked to Bill just before he left for London. He was thrilled, and very much looking forward to the forty-minute webcast.

SpaceLab founder, Google's Zahaan Bharmal, says, "Our hope is that this livestream from space will be the world's largest, coolest scientific classroom. Today's SpaceLab winners - as well as the millions of other young minds watching the stream on YouTube - represent tomorrow's space explorers. They may one day walk on Mars!"