Courtesy of yurisnight.net.
Yuri’s Night 2011 stats: 557 events in 75 countries on 6 continents on 2 worlds (Earth and the Space Station!)
50 years ago the launch of a bell-shaped capsule called “Vostok 1” on April 12th, 1961 by Soviet Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin made history as the first human to enter outer space. Exactly 20 years later, the United States innovated the space age by launching the Space Shuttle (April 12th, 1981). Twenty years later Yuri’s Night was created to connect and inspire the globe about human spaceflight –– honoring the past while looking forward to the next generation of spaceflight (think Space X, the Google Lunar X Prize and Virgin Galactic!) This year commemorates the 10th anniversary of Yuri’s Night, the 30th Anniversary of the US space shuttle and the 50th anniversary of human spaceflight!
This also marks the 3rd anniversary of California Academy of Sciences involvement with Yuri’s Night. The NightLife team first began working with NASA and the Yuri’s Night collective back in 2009. NASA decided to cancel their Saturday night party at NASA Ames and asked us to host it at NightLife instead. We had 3922 guests come out to celebrate spaceflight. One of the guests was even Buzz Aldrin! In 2010, we expanded our reach. We had another very successful Yuri’s NightLife at the Academy and then participated at NASA Ames on Yuri’s Night School day on Friday and on their Festival Day on Saturday.