Space Chic: NASA Holds T-Shirt Contest to Honor Space Shuttle

Space shuttle Atlantis departs the International Space Station on May 23, 2010 in this photo by Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi. The new Russian research module Rassvet delivered by Atlantis' STS-132 crew can be seen in this view at the upper right. CREDIT: NASA/Astro_Soichi.

Good news for geeky space shirt wearers! NASA is hosting a t-shirt design contest to commemorate the final space shuttle flight, and artists the world over are invited to submit their creations.

The contest, sponsored by online t-shirt store Threadless and the Harvard-NASA Tournament Laboratory, is open until July 22.

"To honor all of the shuttle program’s contributions to the world of space travel and beyond, we have a design challenge that’s out of this world!" Threadless says on the contest's homepage."Celebrate the space shuttle launch by creating a design around the theme of final frontier. If chosen, your design could be worn by real and aspiring astronauts for light years to come." [Photos: NASA's Last Shuttle Mission in Pictures]

NASA is mothballing its shuttle fleet to embark on a deep-space exploration program that aims to send humans to an asteroid and Mars. The space agency's last shuttle launched July 8, and will land July 21 after stocking up the International Space Station. 

The winner of the t-shirt challenge, to be chosen by popular vote, will snag $500 in cash, a $500 Threadless gift certificate and a shuttle-flown patch from his or her home country. The winning design will be available for sale at Threadless.

The contest is part of NASA's efforts to study crowd-sourced innovation through challenges at the Harvard-NASA Tournament Laboratory, which is run by Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass.

You can submit designs and vote on the contenders here: http://atrium.threadless.com/nasa/

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