YouTube is focusing on a students oriented competition, which would be for students of the age group 14 to 18. The competition would have students suggesting an experiment, which can be done in outer space. The highlight of this competition is that the prizes include space training. YouTube has a dedicated channel for the cause, which is named Space Lab. YouTube with this, aims to inspire future space travelers and those interested in the topic. Vic Gundotra, Senior Vice-President of Social Business for Google, even had his part of promotion for the same posted on Google+.
YouTube would be partnered by Lenovo, the computer manufacturer and the announcement came up on October 10th. The competition states that there would be two winning entries which would be selected and accordingly those would be performed by astronauts abroad the International Space Station, 240 miles (386 kilometers) above Earth.
There were a few self answered questions from YouTube posted on the Official Google Blog. An extract of the blog post, which is noted as below:
“Can plants survive beyond Earth? Can proteins observed in space reveal the mysteries of life? Science experiments aboard the International Space Station (ISS) could unlock the answers and now we’re giving you a chance to ask the questions. Today, we’re launching YouTube Space Lab with Lenovo, in cooperation with Space Adventures, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the European Space Agency (ESA), and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). Space Lab is a new galactic channel on YouTube that will lift off from your laptop, taking you to interesting and awesome videos from around the world… and beyond,”
Google has been playing around with its properties for many years now, and this might seem to be yet another attempt by the search engine giant to get more users generating content for their properties. But this time the attempt has been routed via a section, wherein they need to hit the right button at the point it is needed. This is because the original Sky Lab crashed to earth in Australia July 1979, almost 10 years after the first man walked on the moon.
Google might think that they would not be second time unlucky with this project, but their approach still needs to be a bit more thoughtful. It can be assumed that Google thinks that this new Sky Lab will remain up in cyber space. Known Googlers Larry Page and Sergey Brin have been interested in coming up with something related to the space for quite some time now.
Google had a doodle for Yuri Gargarin, the company has been working with NASA and Brin has booked to travel in space when technology allows. This cannot be just coincidence and clearly notes what Google is aiming at. If Google succeeds in getting this project rightly successful, then popularity wise, their image would be up by many ‘plus 1s’.
However, in any case, the usefulness of this channel would be opted by science teachers all over the world. For now, it is only important to note the fact that what will one get out of the said space training.
A promotional video for Space Lab project can be seen below:
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