No Borders - Bridging Cultures Through Yuri's Night
- Paper number
IAC-13,E1,8,4,x17699
- Author
Mr. Jeffrey W. Alles, Yuri's Night, United States
- Coauthor
Dr. Ryan L. Kobrick, Yuri's Night, United States
- Coauthor
Mr. R. Brice Russ, Yuri's Night, United States
- Coauthor
Ms. Stephanie Finnvik, Yuri's Night, United States
- Coauthor
Mr. Tim Bailey, Yuri's Night, United States
- Year
2013
- Abstract
Yuri’s Night is a non-profit organization that has facilitated a global celebration of humanity’s past, present, and future in space since 2001. Events are held annually in commemoration and celebration of the day of the first human spaceflight (12 April 1961), and the inaugural launch of the Space Shuttle twenty years later. In alignment with our mission statement, we aim to bridge cultures, be they geographic, social, or technical, as we are all learning to speak each other’s languages. Museum and science centers have celebrated a range of activities from dance parties with Stormtroopers to TweetUps with Astronauts. Locations have included: Powerhouse Discovery Centre (Australia); Rothney Astrophysical Observatory (Canada); University of Barcelona (Spain); Museum of Science and Technology (Sweden); Fiske Planetarium (USA); Great Lakes Science Center (USA); California Academy of Sciences (USA); and even the International Spaceflight Museum (Second Life). Yuri’s Night has reached the far corners of our planet on a variety of remote research platforms, where mission crews have recorded messages to share with events across the globe. Events have occurred in extreme places such as the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, in Mars simulations at the Mars Desert Research Station (USA) and Mars500 (Russia), and in orbit aboard the International Space Station. The upcoming ‘Explore with Yuri’ project aims to bring more attention to the initiative by encouraging people to submit photos and stories sporting Yuri’s Night t-shirts, stickers, and patches, in esoteric locations. Yuri’s Night has become more than an annual cultural space event and has reached the summit of Mt. Everest (patch with Astronaut Parazynski), SpaceUp Houston (USA), SpaceUp India, the set of the Big Bang Theory (flyer on Raj’s fridge), EndlessBBQ (barbeque celebrations with Space Tweeps), and the International Space Development Conference. Yuri’s Night contributed the event registration solution for the GetCurious campaign, which targeted landing parties for the Mars Science Laboratory, Curiosity. More than 25,000 people celebrated the landing at events from The Planetary Society’s PlanetFest in Pasadena, USA, to ~13,000 people gathering in Algiers, Algeria. For Yuri’s Night 2013 and beyond, our team has launched new campaigns with outreach partners including increased K12 activity and the ‘We Want Our Future’ initiative. Yuri’s Night is breaking down borders to traditional space outreach and will continue to enter into popular culture by creating opportunities for anyone to celebrate human spaceflight in their own cultural context.
- Abstract document
- Manuscript document
IAC-13,E1,8,4,x17699.pdf (🔒 authorized access only).
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