Yuri's Night Stuttgart - Three Years of Communicating Space

Paper number

IAC-09.E1.3.4

Author

Mr. Juergen Schlutz, University of Stuttgart, Germany

Year

2009

Abstract

Yuri’s Night, subtitled the "World Space Party", has first been celebrated on 12 April 2001 commemorating the 40th birthday of Gagarin’s legendary flight and the 20th of the first Space Shuttle launch. It has been growing rapidly ever since, including a wide variety of events all around the globe, involving the space enthusiasts in organization and reaching out to the broad public.

Yuri’s Night activities in Stuttgart were initiated by Juergen Schlutz in 2006/2007 and resulted in one of the largest events outside the US, showing the general interest and curiosity of many people towards space exploration and utilization. Several hundred people took the chance to learn about local, national and worldwide endeavours in spaceflight. Consequently, Yuri’s Night 2008 continued the success in attracting public attention and gathering space experts and supporters.
Yuri’s Night 2009 is again growing to be one of the major public space events in Germany and offers a multitude of opportunities to get involved and to experience space activities. Partnering with the Planetarium Stuttgart, an exhibition of the last 50 years of space vehicles and technologies gives an insight into the complexity of space systems, while selected 3D movie material and presentations communicate the aspects of living and working in space as well as tourist opportunities for everyone arising in the not-too-far future. At the same time, dedicated activities involve young explorers and the World Space Party a different side of space outreach for an important target group.  With the Universitaet Stuttgart having one of the largest aerospace faculties in Europe, students and the opportunities to get involved with spaceflight is a peculiar element of Yuri’s Night Stuttgart.

The paper will give more insight and draw conclusions from the last three years of Yuri’s Night outreach activities in Stuttgart and Germany as a whole. It provides a summary of organizational aspects involving educational institutions, governmental agencies and industry in the creation and operation of the event, while also addressing particular issues of public relations and media attraction. The author then develops recommendations for future similar events regarding target groups and contents, and integrates Yuri’s Night into nationwide and worldwide outreach activities.

Abstract document

IAC-09.E1.3.4.pdf

Manuscript document

IAC-09.E1.3.4.pdf (🔒 authorized access only).

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