Yuri's Night | The World Space Party – Connecting people with each other, their dreams and spaceship earth.

As part of the preparations for our 10th consecutive year of promoting space-based celebration, Yuri’s Night (as frequent followers of the blog may have seen) is releasing a podcast series of toasts and personal notes from prominent space personalities in support of the World Space Party.

After a soft launch of the Yuri’s Night podcast in 2009, the video series now has four installments available for download, most recently from five-time Space Shuttle astronaut Jim Voss. Voss, who trained at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, Russia while serving as a backup for missions to the Mir space station, also worked aboard the ISS for 163 days and is currently the Roubos Chair for the Department of Aerospace Engineering at the University of Colorado. Previous podcasts include greetings from Joe Tanner, a four-time Shuttle astronaut and Senior Instructor at the University of Colorado, and Loretta and George Whitesides, respectively the Executive Director of Yuri’s Night and the Chief of Staff for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

Yuri’s Night podcasts are available for use during individual Yuri’s Night events, as videos to send and show to friends and acquaintances, and just as a entertaining reminder of the spread and impact of the Yuri’s Night movement. Further Yuri’s Night podcasts are currently being recorded and, though we can’t give out any specific names, we assure you that they’ll be equally exciting. (In fact, if you’re a prominent figure in space or elsewhere who’s interested in recording a video, please contact our podcast coordinator, Ryan Kobrick, at ryan@yurisnight.net.) All Yuri’s Night podcasts are available via iTunes or at the YN website, http://www.yurisnight.net.

Yuri’s Night is an organization dedicated to promoting awareness of space exploration efforts in commemoration of Yuri Gagarin’s first manned spaceflight and the first launch of the Space Shuttle. No statements in this release are meant to imply any form of endorsement by NASA or any subsidiary organizations.

Yuri’s Night today expressed its strongest support for NASA Administrator Charles Bolden’s call for scientists to reach out and engage with younger and nonscientific audiences in his recent address to the American Astronomical Society. Yuri’s Night applauds Bolden’s call for expanded outreach and remains dedicated to engaging diverse audiences at this critical time in the history of space exploration.

“Yuri’s Night helps to bridge the gap between the science community and other parts of society,” said Yuri’s Night Assistant Director Tim Bailey.  ”We help ’stir the pot’ and create opportunities for new interactions between groups that don’t usually mingle.  What starts as a fun, informal social event can easily lead to more formalized education and outreach later.”

For nearly 10 years, Yuri’s Night has brought the joy and wonder of space to nontraditional audiences through thousands of grassroots space-themed events held around the world from Stockholm to LA’s Griffith Observatory, to backyards, and even the South Pole. Yuri’s Night has introduced science and space exploration into the lives of hundreds of thousands of people worldwide. Collaboration with artists, musicians, scientists, and groups such as Students for the Exploration and Development of Space and the 501st Legion have helped bring space, science, and entertainment to masses of young men and women.  Yuri’s Night looks forward to furthering these efforts as the annual April 12th event approaches.

Yuri’s Night is a global non-profit organization that brings together the worlds of art, music and science to celebrate our future on this planet and beyond. Since 2001, we have encouraged events around April 12th, the anniversary of Yuri Gagarin’s first flight into space in 1961 and the first launch of the US Space Shuttle in 1981. These independently-organized events offer opportunities for a diverse, non-traditional audience to access the excitement and inspiration of space exploration.