Yuri’s Night Houston

Holy Cow!

It’s been over two months already! I think Time is accelerating more and more. Anyway here’s a drastically delayed synopsis of Yuri’s Night Houston, there  is even a slideshow for you at the bottom. Hope you’ve all been well and are using this Summer to find yourself under the Stars often. Enjoy!

April 10th, 2010 - Yuri’s Night Houston

Waking up bright and early was the Yuri’s 5k Fun Run team. They made their way to the Challenger 7 Memorial Park to setup for the nearly 200 racers who woke with the Sun to run with us. Not only did they get to race around the park and up Challenger Hill, the racers received a swanky running shirt with their package! The fun run this year was a great success in both the kids run and the 5k! Thanks to all the runners, volunteers, and sponsors who helped us raise nearly $3000.00 for the Houston Museum of Natural Science: Challenger Learning Center!! ( A branch of the Challenger Center for Space Science Education).

The next event was Space Day at Discovery Green in downtown Houston! With it’s friendly park atmosphere and tons of space (for the water rockets!), Discovery Green is a great venue for Space Day . We had a little rain early on that sent us for the tents but luckily the Sun powered through the clouds and soon the park was packed and our exhibits were engaging the crowds. Texas A&M SEDS came down with great coloring activities for the kids and a 3D picture of Mars! We also had the JSC Engineer’s without Borders group out and they were showing off all the good work they do around the world with examples! A simple hand washing station and a good water pump, simple things we take for granted but can really help the health of a community. Also out were AIAA Houston, a local High school robotics team, and a bunch of exhibits from NASA JSC! All of which intrigued the public and spurred great conversations. Finally we had the SWE community out with Water Rockets! They were obviously the big hit of the event and were constantly launching. Check the pictures below for some highlights!

The final event from Yuri’s Night Houston was the Celebration at the Hilton America’s right next to Discovery Green.   Before the evening got too far in, a short celebration of Yuri’s Gagarin’s flight occurred with Mr. Robert Pearlman of CollectSpace.com giving us the historical story. He Wow-ed us with stories for both Vostok-1 and STS-1 Columbia, sharing some of the inside stories he’s discovered and showing us some real pieces of history.  After the insightful stories about two of the greatest accomplishments of Humanity to date, a great cake decorated with images from Yuri Gagarin’s flight was devoured by the crowd!

After the late night snack, the Spiney-Norman Texas retook the stage.  Their energy and great instrumentation got the people on the dance floor and moving, even with the cake!  As the crowd got into the swing of things, the next surprise joined the celebration: The 501st Legion (aka Vader’s Fist).  Stormtroopers and Boba Fett descended upon the crowd, but never fear, for a Jedi was there to keep them…we’ll say ‘In check’.   After the 501st joined the crowd and got their groove on, it was time for the event of the evening. That’s right, for the third year in a row Jacobs Technology was able to sponsor a raffle for one lucky person to experience weightlessness on a Zero-G flight!  To keep things fair we let the Jedi pick the winner and if you see the pictures below you’ll see that our winner was Amy!!  Amy has always wanted to be an Astronaut and even paid for her own way to space camp when she was little!  Now she get’s the opportunity to experience true weightlessness, Congrats Amy! And that concluded our night. The Hilton venue was great and the staff and volunteers did an excellent job setting up all the cool exhibits we had. Thanks to Esvy Photography,  Mr. Tenenbaum, and everyone else for the great photos!

Also Thanks to everyone who came out whether supporting, volunteering, educating, or just celebrating, it was a great day honoring two great achievements!!   Look out for us next year as planning is already beginning so look for updates as things start to form up.

We look forward to celebrating with you next year, and thanks again to everyone who took part in Yuri’s Night Houston or Yuri’s Night World Wide 2010!

Hello Yuri’s Night goers,

Just a note to say Thanks to all those who came out and supported Yuri’s Night Houston 2010! Whether running the Yuri’s 5k, exploring the meaning of it all at Space Day, or Celebrating in the evening, we hope you had a good time and enjoyed yourselves! Also, Congratulations to this Year’s Jacobs sponsored Zero-G Winner!! You’re sure to enjoy that flight!

Look for a full update with pictures in the next couple weeks. Also, don’t forget the real day for Yuri’s Night is April 12th so be sure to raise your gaze to the stars tomorrow!

’til the next post,

-The Yuri’s Night Team

Hey All,

We’ve had a few inquiries as to tickets at the door that I would like to address. This year we unfortunately cannot take money at the door so you really need to get your tickets before hand. You can do so on our celebration page here. But good news! To allow for those who may have been planning for tickets at the door the deadline has been extended until Midnight tonight!

See you all tomorrow!!

-The YN Houston Team

Helloooo Space City!

I know you have been waiting for details for the Yuri’s Night Houston Celebration and here they are!

Quick Run Down:

• Yuri’s Night Houston 2010 Celebration
• 8pm-12am April 10th  @ Hilton Americas - Houston
• Lots of cool space stuff!
• Ticketing Information to come! Be among the first to know about ticketing, email ynhouston.tickets@gmail.com

Full Story:

First off when and where? The Yuri’s Night Houston 2010 Celebration will be from 8pm-12am April 10th@ Hilton Americas - Houston where you will be joining people on all 7 continents in celebrating the 1st person in space, Yuri Gagarin! Yuri’s Night Houston will join around 150 celebrations around the world! (At the time of this posting, get updated here)

Here at the Houston, aka Space City, Celebration you’ll get to experience live music from a great local band Spiny Norman (see their awesome logo below),  some great Space Exhibits, a chance to mingle with local area space enthusiasts, and the opportunity to reflect with others about the amazing technological achievement of sending Human’s to space.  Come and join the world as we celebrate the launch of the first Human into space, Yuri Gagarin, and the first Space Shuttle launch,  STS-1 Columbia!

Ticketing has ran into a few issues this year but we have a work around. While we sort the details express your interest in tickets by sending us an email at ynhouston.tickets@gmail.com and be among the first to know the details on ticketing! (Since the event is next week we really suggest sending us an email! )

Sending us an email to the above address will guarantee you know about the ticketing information when it is finalized and don’t worry we wont use your email for anything other than our personal ticketing information or give it to anyone else. If you don’t want to send us an email, keep checking back here or on our facebook and twitter pages, we expect to have ticketing information early next week (links above and on the right).

For a few more details on ticketing information check out our celebration page and don’t forget to check out the other two events The Yuri’s 5k and Space Day!! Enjoy an entire day dedicated to Space Exploration!

Stay tuned, more details to come!

-The YN Houston Team

This year’s band:

Too often we humans find ourselves consumed by the events in our immediate area. Our time gets consumed by our personal trials and tribulations, our jobs, families, and friends. These things are important and make up our day to day lives but we must also make time to look at the grandeur picture. Take the time to ponder who we are as humans, our current place in this Universe as we know it,  where we want to go as a civilization, and what are we going to do about it?

This celebration is more than celebrating 1 person, more than celebrating technological achievements, it is celebrating Human drive and potential.

Who would have thought that we would go from not being able to fly to touching the moon and building a fast moving star (the International Space Station) in just 100 years? And what did this expansion of knowledge give us?  Well aside from being able to communicate effectively around the Earth,  bringing together Nations in space, advances in Medicine, and other benefits it has been said that one of the greatest things discovered when we sent Human’s to space is that we discovered the Earth.

The image below from Apollo 8 reinforces this idea. (Continued After)

And further probing has shown us just how small our planet is

So this Celebration is different, for we celebrate the achievements of the past as well as our continued learning and exploring of this vast Universe. So come celebrate with us and if you are in Houston, Texas this April 10th here are the three events happening:

Yuri’s 5k Fun Run - 8am @ Challenger 7 Memorial Park - Sign up here

Space Day - 11am-5pm @ Discovery Green - Free!

Yuri’s Night Celebration - 8pm-12am @ Hilton Americas - Houston (Tickets on sale Early next week!)

Stay Tuned and we’ll see you soon!

-The YN Houston Team

Hello All,

Yuri’s Night is almost here and there is a lot brewing just around the corner!  Our plan is to have the details of the Celebration finalized over this weekend so keep your eye’s alert for Ticket and Event information early next week, while keeping your April 10th evening open and ready for Yuri’s Night Houston 2010!

And while we have your attention we would like take a moment to thank this year’s major sponsors that are making it possible for AIAA Houston Section to host this great event. The dedication of our sponsors to sharing Space Exploration is exceptional and for that we thank them.

Please join us in giving Thanks to Jacobs Technology, The Boeing Co., and ERC!!

While your anticipation builds for the final details on the Celebration, don’t forget about Space Day @ Discovery Green and these two events as well:

1.)“The Future of Space” Art Contest has less than a week left!

2.) There are over 100 people signed up for the Yuri’s 5k, are you?

Alright, we’ll be back soon! Until then keep dreaming, exploring, and getting ready to celebrate with Yuri’s Night Houston 2010!!

-The YN Houston Team

Image Credit: NASA