Yuri's Night: Linking the World Together with an International Space Celebration

摘要

Yuri's Night, "The World Space Party," is an annual global celebration of the history, present, and future of human spaceflight. Since 2001, Yuri's Night events have been celebrated around April 12, the date of the first human space launch of Yuri Gagarin in 1961 and the first launch of the Space Shuttle in 1981. Over 1,800 independently organized Yuri's Night events have been held across all seven continents, with attendance figures ranging from over 12,000 (NASA Ames Research Center) to small groups of friends at backyard barbecues. Yuri's Night events are all-inclusive happenings that connect space enthusiasts of all ages, nationalities, and backgrounds. In this paper, we discuss the methods that have made Yuri's Night a global success, including the use of cutting-edge web-based technologies, the role of the Global Executive Team in encouraging event organizers' creativity and originality, developing communication among independent events (highlighted by a global webcast), and outreach to a global community of artists, astronauts, scientists, students, engineers, and educators. Additional areas of discussion include public endorsements by well-known aerospace figures and celebrities, support from national space agencies such as NASA, JAXA, and ESA, and reaching orbit with video messages from both Space Shuttle Columbia and the International Space Station. We conclude with a brief overview of plans to continue the growth of events and spread Yuri's Night as a means to inspire and link humanity during its expansion into the cosmos.