Youtube Space Lab challenge and my proposal

[SpaceMarine93]

Youtube had recently announced a competition, in collaboration with NASA and sponsored by them and Lenovo, to which hopefully would renew public interest in space travel, work in NASA and the cosmos in general.

It goes like this: If you're 14-18 years old, they're challenging you to come up with a science experiment which could be streamed live on YouTube from the International Space Station, along with other great prizes. Some incredible partners and a distinguished panel of expert judges from around the world are helping to make this happen.

Since I am still under 18, personally I hope to see an experiment in which they would test the effect of microgravity on the development of embryos of animals. My plan as followed:

Experiment to determine the effect of microgravity to animal embryo development

Observation: Microgravity had been observed to affect the skeletal/muscle/circulatory system of astronauts after long term duration in space, mostly causing atrophy and other ill effects.

Theory: Microgravity would similarly affect the development growth of animal embryos in gestation

Hypothesis: Microgravity would affect the development of embryo skeletal/muscle/circulatory system growth in gestation in similar ways to how it affects astronauts, and it would severely compromise the ability to generate a healthy newborn individual in the process.

Null hypothesis: Microgravity would not affect the growth of an animal embryo in the same way as it affects an astronaut's skeletal/muscle/circulatory system growth in gestation, or even if it would, would not compromise the generation of a healthy newborn individual.

Equipment and materials: 12 new chicken eggs, 2 incubators

Plan: 6 eggs would be brought to the ISS with a special incubator that would allow them to be gestated while in space. The other 6 eggs would remain on Earth as a control experiment. After both are subjected to incubation in incubators with required conditions for hatching for 21 days (standard incubation period for eggs), the hatched chicks would be tested to see any difference in their skeletal structure, muscle and circulatory system developments.

There, that's my plan. Anyone here have any other ideas for a Space Lab experiment?

[LaCroix]

1. Can you even do this to a chicken egg after the egg is laid? As far as I know, gestation occurs before the shell is formed.
2. Hasn't something along these line already been done? I (mis?)remember amphibians and fishes...

[Hawkwings]

I think the idea is to run experiments that can be streamed live as they're run. Nobody wants to watch eggs incubating for 21 days. Also, they would likely be leery of seeing deformed chick-monsters.

[Akhlut]

1. Can you even do this to a chicken egg after the egg is laid? As far as I know, gestation occurs before the shell is formed.

Not a lot, actually. Most development occurs once the egg has been laid, especially for all the important features.

Streaming video of this really wouldn't be exciting, either.

There's also the matter that development differs between different animals, especially ones as diverse as birds and mammals. It'd be better to get pregnant mice and see what happens to the offspring then, rather than chicken eggs. Also, it'd be a bit more entertaining to watch mice in microgravity than eggs taped to an incubator.

[Feil]

Realistic:
What happens when you boil water in microgravity?

Fantasy:
Make a spinning ringworld-style habitat for some variety of small animal, and spin it up to a reasonable fraction of a gravity. Mice, maybe. Case it in so they don't fall out, and put little ladders along the inside of the plexiglass for them to climb on. Try to teach them how to fly!

[Eleas]

Please don't use yellow text. For those of us using SubSilver, yellow is barely readable.

[Dave]

Is this wet or dry stowage? (i.e. is the experiment bolted to the outside superstructure nakedly exposed to space and all that that entails or is it in a pressurized compartment with people occasionally poking at it?)

Personally I'd like to see a continuation of a project I worked on in college, testing arc welding in microgravity. Our project established that you get weaker welds in microgravity in atmosphere, as larger (though still microscopic) voids in the weld occur, sapping its strength.

We never tested it in space though. Unfortunately I don't think you'd get the same lightshow you normally see with arc welding in space, as there wouldn't be any gas to ionize spectacularly.

[Commander Veers]

Wouldn't the ~3g ascent pose a confounding variable that might affect the chicken eggs before they even reached ISS? Might be a silly suggestion, but there is that long duration where they're undergoing a set of forces hitherto unknown to frail little chicken egg (the healthy ones anyway!).
I'm not so sure I'd want to look in the comments section for such a video additionally. I think the denizens of YouTube want to see clocks spinning around fixed hands whilst careening around in space or orange jelly being jettisoned off into a vacuum rather than deformation of a hatch of fluffy little chicks. Roll on the QQ if this experiment ever did make it through.
I like the idea though!