NASA teamed up with nonprofit Yuri’s Night to throw a party in Hangar 211 of the NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California. The party was billed as a celebration of the beginning of human space travel, on the anniversary of Yuri Gagarin’s flight of April 12, 1961.
There were plenty of other things to celebrate, too, including robots, LED-illuminated hula hoops, LCD projector art and a total of four geodesic domes. NASA scientist Chris McKay, self-funded space traveler Anousheh Ansari, and other space celebrities addressed the crowd.
The overall message: Space travel will be incredibly fun. And in the meantime, you can still dress up in funny-looking space helmets and dance all night long under the glow of the projection screens.
Art in Zero G
Frank Pietronigro, the founder of the Zero Gravity Arts Coalition, wants to open space up to artistic exploration. He has already completed one work in zero gravity, where he floated through jets of suspended pigment and splattered them on a canvas.
Anousheh Ansari
The first female space tourist tells the crowd what it’s like to spend a week on the International Space Station. Ansari’s trip last September cost her an estimated $20 million.
Beam Me Up, Buddha
A rocket-pack-wearing partygoer stands in front of the ChakraTron, a “fortune-telling interactive kinetic light sculpture.”
Is This Burning Man?
Michael Christian’s tower, Hypha, which has appeared at Burning Man, stood in front of the hangar, roped off with caution tape to prevent people from climbing on it.
Inflatable Art
Large, white, turnip-shaped objects, made of lightweight plastic sheeting and inflated by an ordinary household fan, shifted and blew back and forth against one wall of the hangar.
Domes and Robots
This geodesic dome is one of four installed in (or near) the hangar, stood at NASA Ames’ Moffett Field research center. In the foreground, people watch robots from NASA’s Robotics Alliance Project, a program aimed at bringing robotics to schools.
LED Hula
A dancer equipped with an LED-illuminated hula hoop shows off her moves.
Jet Projection
The Kuiper Airborne Observatory, NASA’s modified C-141A, was parked in front of Hangar 211 and transformed into a curved display screen for artistic aerospace imagery.
Chris McKay
NASA exobiologist Chris McKay gets the rock-star treatment from a crowd eager to hear everything he had to say about exploring Mars.
Irina Slutsky
Irina Slutsky, correspondent for Geek Entertainment TV, files her report from Moffett Field.
Sputnik Helmet
Aaron Muszalski sports a Sputnik-shaped helmet. An artist who has contributed several large-scale projects to Burning Man, Muszalski has film credits as a digital artist for Grindhouse, The Last Mimsy and Star Wars II: Attack of the Clones.
Space Cowboys’ Unimog
The Space Cowboys‘ modified Unimog is a complete, self-contained dance party: massive speakers, fold-out projection screens, two turntables and an orange Lexan dome for the DJ. Plus, of course, generators. Oh, and it’s street legal.
Read the original article on Wired: here
