Yuri’s Night Houston

Yuri’s Night Houston occurred Saturday April 4^th, helping kick off a week of Yuri’s Night Celebrations around the world, totaling 207 events in 46 countries! The Houston events included an early morning 5k Fun Run and an evening Celebration.

The Fun Run at 8am was held at Challenger Park with the intention of raising money for the Challenger Center for Space Science Education. Volunteers from multiple organizations showed up early on the foggy morning to setup. As the fog cleared deer were able to be seen in the fields and the runners assembled. With a blast of a horn they were off around the course, up the Challenger Memorial knoll, and through the woods. When all was said and done over 150 people made the early morning run raising a lot of money for a healthy donation! (Over $1500!! Final amount to come.)

After the Fun Run was over volunteers from the Space community descended upon the Meridian up in Houston at High Noon and began preparing for the evening’s celebrations. Space Exhibits were set up, tables and chairs organized, posters, banners, and signs were all hung, a TV and laptop were set up to loop space videos, and the VIP room was decorated. All this work for the special celebration of Human Space Flight!

At 8pm the doors opened and the crowd started to enter. To their amazement there was a lot of space visuals including a time line of NASA’s Human Space Flight programs, information on the constellation program, banners promoting exploration, and models of the Ares I and Ares V!! After giving people some time to get to know the area and get into the groove of the evening thanks to the SoundChemistDJ, opening remarks similar to the following were given.

Opening Remarks:

Good Evening Yuri’s Night Houston!

Welcome to Yuri’s Night Houston 2009! I hope you are all aware of why we are here tonight, but if you aren’t let me refresh your memory real quick. This year is the 48^th year since Human’s began to directly explore space. 48 years since Yuri Gagarin’s flight around the Earth! We are also celebrating the 28^th Anniversary of the first Space Shuttle Launch, the 40^th Anniversary of the Apollo programs first landing on the Moon, and it is also the International Year of Astronomy Celebrating the 400^th Anniversary of Galileo’s first use of the Telescope! We have been zooming in on the Universe farther and farther for 400 years! And there are still more things to celebrate such as the ISS power system getting up to full power and a recycling system to enable doubling the crew size!

All of these things are amazing Human achievements! Yet, why do we remember them? We remember them because these events pushed the abilities of the people who made them happen. They pushed themselves and in so doing expanded their abilities and ours as Humans. They expanded our understanding of the Universe because we were exploring new territory and new realms. These singular achievements are remembered because they pushed boundaries, they redefined what ‘possible’ means. So tonight we celebrate those in the past, present, and future who redefine those seemingly impossible feats as possible! Welcome to Yuri’s Night Houston!

In order to ignite Yuri’s Night Houston 2009, a pair of fire dancers started the evenings performances to the awe of the crowd. Spinning balls of fire and a flaming hula-hoop definitely grabbed the crowds attention. Following the Fire dancers, the 501^st Squadron made their debut at Yuri’s Night Houston! The Imperial stormtroopers and officers, as well as Boba Fett were an instant hit! As the evening went on the Troopers even started to relax and get down on the dance floor! You could possibly take this as proof that anything is possible.

Following the appearing of the 501^st, the Russian singer Milana sang us some beautiful music in Russian. She has been listened to around Johnson space center before as well as having her music played on the ISS. As Yuri Gagarin was Russian and Yuri’s Night is a world event, it was great to have a Russian component to the evening. Thanks Milana!

Following Milana’s performance it was time for the door prize raffles. First up, a great book on The Apollo Program and a Yuri’s Night T-shirt were raffled off together. After that a Discovery Flight from Dutch Wings was raffled off! That was just to whet the appetite for the Jacobs Zero-G Raffle to come later.

So after the quick raffling, we brought the celebration back up to speed and back to Texas with some homegrown ‘Rock-it Scientists’! ‘The Rock-it Scientists’ did just what their name implies and literally rocked Yuri’s Night with all the good stuff! About two-thirds of the way through the set it was finally time for the Jacobs Zero-G Raffle!

Hoots and Hollers erupted as Mr. Lon Miller took the stage for the Zero-G raffle. Before drawing the winner, Mr. Miller made some excellent remarks on where we are and where we are going in the Space Industry! (FYI, we’re going to the Moon!) Mr. Miller also laid out a hefty challenge, for which Yuri’s Night Houston will be recruiting in the future, and that is to have Yuri’s Night fill the George R. Brown Convention center in 5 years! That will be Awesome!

After the remarks it was time for the Zero-G Raffle! With great anticipation the crowd waited until the name came out…and that name was Keellin Volcanes! She is the 2009 Jacobs Zero-G Raffle winner! Congrats Keellin and have fun experiencing Zero-G!!

With the Zero-G Raffle complete we got back to the celebration of spaceflight with some more of ‘The Rock-it Scientists’ Rock! With the crowd singing and dancing the band finished up the great set and then handed off to the SoundChemist DJ who got nearly everybody straight to the dance floor and kept us all there celebrating spaceflight until the wee hours of the morning! A great day, a great run, a great celebration, a great Yuri’s Night Houston 2009!

From Yuri’s Night Houston, Thanks to all of our performers, those that provided us with the great space exhibits, our excellent and devoted volunteers, and of course our sponsors for letting us get the word out about space by celebrating some of Humanity’s great achievements! Keep redefining what is ‘possible’ and we’ll see you in 2010!

Here is a link to the pics and a slideshow!

-The Yuri’s Night Houston Team