Ever wanted to work for NASA? Have you fantasized about being part of Mission Control? While you might never get the chance to launch a shuttle or pilot a Mars rover, you can still contribute to the quest to find out more about the cosmos, thanks to a hackathon sponsored by NASA (with support from IBM). The International Space Apps Challenge will take place April 11-12, preceded by a live-streamed “boot camp” on April 10. Nor is it strictly for programmers: engineers, entrepreneurs, students, artists, designers, and others can all participate in the challenges, which will center on topics such as robotics, data visualization, hardware, and design. Even if you’re not one of the thousands of people participating in the event (which will include access to IBM’s Bluemix cloud-development tools), you can still check out the challenges posted on the Space Apps website. Some interesting ones include developing software applications for an open-hardware robotic observatory; building mobile apps for farmers dealing with crop pests and diseases; and figuring out how to estimate the thermal power consumption of a spacecraft. Those who want to register and participate can check out the Space Apps Challenge website. Image: iurii/Shutterstock.com