The clock is
ticking for young artists hoping to draw up an emblem for the next paying tourist
to visit the International Space Station (ISS).
American
computer game developer Richard Garriott, a multimillionaire training to launch
toward the space station this fall, is looking for an original design that could
serve as a student mission patch or t-shirt in a contest organized by the Challenger
Center for Space Science Education.
Launched in
late March, the art competition is open to students of all ages across the U.S.
to submit a design that reflects the "the adventure and discovery of spaceflight,"
center officials said in a statement, adding that final entries are due by
April 18. While submissions will be collected into a design gallery, the
winning emblem could ultimately fly in space, they added.
Garriott, 46,
is paying
$30 million for an October launch to the station under an agreement
brokered with Russia's Federal Space Agency by the Virginia-based U.S. space
tourism firm Space Adventures. His mother Helen is an artist, while his father Owen
is a retired NASA astronaut who flew to NASA's Skylab space station in 1973,
and later on a space shuttle mission.
"I feel
that I was very much inspired by both of my parents, my father from a science
and technology standpoint, of course, but [also] my mother as a professional artist,"
Garriott told SPACE.com in a recent interview.
The "Student
Patch Contest" is one of several
educational-themed activities planned for Garriott's flight in conjunction
with the Arlington, Va.-based Challenger Center and outlets
in the United Kingdom. Garriott has said that he hopes his flight will spur
youth interest in space and science through activities before launch, aboard the
space station and after his return.
At noon
(EDT) on April 21, he is expected to hold a live webcast with students at the Challenger
Center to answer student-submitted questions from the Russian cosmonaut
training center in Star City, Russia. Students have until April 18 to submit
questions for the space tourist, center officials said.
Garriott
said he hopes to take artwork along on his spaceflight, some of it created by his mother, and host an orbital art show aboard the space station. He also hopes to create some
art of his own.
"I'm not
particularly a fine artist myself," he said. "I want to create something that
demonstrates properties of zero [gravity] and hopefully has some visual
interest also."
His
creations, he hopes, will return to Earth and be sold in auctions to raise funds
for charities.
While
Garriott must wait until October to launch to the space station, his return ride
home is gearing up for a Tuesday liftoff.
The Soyuz
TMA-12 spacecraft that will ferry Garriott back to Earth after his space
station stay is slated
to launch tomorrow at 7:16 a.m. EDT (1116 GMT) from the Central Asian
spaceport of Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. South Korea's first astronaut,
So-yeon Yi, and Expedition 17 cosmonauts Sergei Volkov and Oleg Kononenko will launch
aboard the Soyuz spacecraft.
Garriott
will return home with Kononenko and Volkov, who by coincidence is also the son
of a professional cosmonaut, making their landing this fall the first with two
second-generation spaceflyers aboard. Yi will return to Earth with the station's outgoing crewmembers when they land on April 19.
Click here for
more information on the rules and application information of the "Student Patch
Contest" under way by the Challenger Center and Richard Garriott. Students can click here
to submit questions for the live webcast with Garriott.
Garriott
is documenting his mission at his personal Web site: http://www.richardinspace.com.
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