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(April 14, 2004 - Los Angeles) The beginning of human spaceflight was commemorated on April 12th with global celebrations known as Yuri's Night. The celebration of Yuri Gagarin's orbit around the Earth in 1961 is a grass roots effort first organized into worldwide parties in 2001. This year marks the fourth annual festivities that also celebrated the anniversary of the first Space Shuttle flight in 1981.
In Los Angeles, a VIP party guest list included space-tourist Dennis Tito and Peter Diamandis, founder of ISU and also Chairman and Founder of the X-Prize Foundation, offering a $10 million prize to the first private group to build and fly a three-person spaceship to 100 km. Lance Bass (N' Synch) spoke about inspiring kids and pointing to space on his elementary school tours. An opening address by legendary writer Ray Bradbury was incitement to inspiration. Attendees were the brainy and the beautiful, in some cases both, such as Vanna Bonta, whose poetic novel FLIGHT (1996 Meridian) was a portentous voice of space generation ideals that continually inspires new fans. Imagination met engineering as Nichelle Nichols, an icon for her role as Lt. Uhura of vintage Star Trek (pioneer visionary Gene Roddenberry would be proud), sat front row for the presentation of the Earth and Space Foundation's Exploration Award to the NASA-JPL Mars Exploration Rover team. The pulse, to some of the best trance space music spun, was historic. Yuri’s Night at the futuristic LAX Encounters restaurant one of 75 parties in 34 countries on 7 continents, and the ISS. Many of the events were directly connected with each other through the Internet via streaming video, chat rooms, and email.
From the limitless future of human space colonization to discoveries that will redefine what being human means, people of diverse backgrounds connected with each other through a common inspiration -- the future of space exploration. Human evolution, finally? Yuri's Night Founders George Whitesides (newly appointed Executive Director of NSS) and Loretta Hidalgo hope that a show of global unity will move the planet away from current military preoccupations to something more constructive.
"In 10,000 years, will humans still be partying on the Fourth of July? Probably not. Bastille Day? Doubt it. The day humans first left their home planet? If we're still around to party, probably so." (Wired News, James Bernard Frost)
"Circling the Earth in the orbital spaceship I marvelled at the beauty of our planet. People of the world! Let us safeguard and enhance this beauty - not destroy it!" - Yuri Gagarin
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/yuri-04a.html
http://www.yurisnight.net
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,62977,00.html?tw=wn_culthead_1
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