Colorado Holds Largest Gathering Ever to Celebrate First Human Space Flight
06:48 GMT 17.04.2023 (Updated: 17:11 GMT 20.06.2023)
© AFP 2023
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COLORADO SPRINGS (Sputnik) - Yuri’s Night celebration in Colorado Springs on Sunday has brought the largest number of guests ever to come together to celebrate the first human space flight and the first space shuttle launch, Richard Cooper, vice president of Strategic Communications for the Space Foundation, told Sputnik.
"This year, Yuri’s Night will be the largest gathering, we're looking at around 700 people," Cooper said.
When asked about the significance of Gagarin’s flight, Cooper stressed, "It all starts with him."
"He took the first step. He made the first flight. He made the first orbit. That's fenomenal. [...] No one had ever done anything like that before," he said. "That's a story of courage. That's a story of engineering. That's a story of drive, exploration. That's a story that literally ripples and will ripple forever."
The Space Foundation’s Yuri’s Night is part of the global celebration during the month of April recognizing the first manned spaceflight and the first space shuttle flight.
The guests took part in Sphero Painting and silent auction. Eight astronauts were taking pictures with attendees and signing their photos. There were some drone races, exhibits, presentations, as well as interactive space activities. Moreover, The event’s participants were also enjoying company of the characters of the Star War movies as well as taking pictures of the bronze bust of Yuri Gagarin presented by the Russian government to the Space Foundation in 2017 and were exploring the exhibition with space food from different countries, including Russia, Japan and the United States. And all the participants were treated to some food and specialty cocktails.
Cooper explained that the annual Yuri's night program, held at the Space Foundation Discovery Center, is used to promote what they do at the Space Foundation and in the community, including working in science education, helping teachers to get the tools and skills and curricula they need, as well as help people see that they can have a place with space too.
"We always recognize the heroes and the astronauts and the scientists. And that's great. But there's lots of other things that go on the space too that make a lot of those other missions happen," he noted. "We want to make sure that kids and families, whoever they may be when they come to the Discovery Center can find themselves reflected in the space program."
Cooper observed that the event's attendees comprised numerous space enthusiasts, a significant number of people aged 35 and below, and several community members such as local teachers.
Yuri’s Night was held on the eve of the Space Symposium that every year brings together the world's space, military, civil, government research industry leaders together.
He also emphasized that Yuri's Night serves as a platform to promote science education, teacher development, family engagement, and personal exploration of space-related interests.
Space Foundation Discovery Center Director Rachel English told Sputnik that Yuri's Night serves as a fundraiser to support the museum and the foundation's educational initiatives.
She highlighted some of the unique artifacts on display at the museum,.
"We have Space Lab, which is the scientific laboratory used on the space shuttle program," she said. "There's only three of them in the world. We have the engineering model. And so it trained every astronaut that served on one of the more than 35 Space Lab missions."
Moreover, English added the museum has a robotic arm that flew on the space shuttle.
"One of the things that I'm very proud of about the Discovery Center is that we also host a large international collection," she said. "The Discovery Center doesn't just tell the story of NASA and the American space program. But we tell the Russian story. We have a bust of Yuri, we have Japanese rockets, examples of space food from all over the world, all kinds of things."
"We have a large collection of Russian space food. And so we love showing kids and it's one of the kids’ most commonly asked questions, "what do you eat in space?" And they're always fascinated by the Russian food that we have on display.," English said.
On April 12, 1961, became the first person to travel to space aboard the Vostok spacecraft, orbiting Earth once before landing in what was then the Soviet Union. In recognition of Gagarin's historic achievement, the UN General Assembly proclaimed April 12 as the International Day of Human Space Flight on April 7, 2011, with support from over 60 UN member states.
