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!