Launching parties around the world every year on or around April 12th, in commemoration of Yuri Gagarin becoming the first human to venture into space on April 12, 1961, and the inaugural launch of the first Space Shuttle on April 12, 1981. We use space to bring the world together, to empower the greatest parts of who we are, and give vision to where we are going.
Rock the planet and party under a Space Shuttle or rub elbows with an astronaut while enjoying live entertainment that will blow your boots off. Our yearly grassroots events kick-off on the West Coast in Los Angeles followed by the East Coast in Cape Canaveral. Each event while having the same basic ingredients as the other, always celebrate the advancement of humankind in their own unique fashion.
Centered around April 12th, the anniversary of the first human spaceflight and the first launch of the Space Shuttle, groups around the world host their own Yuri’s Nights events. From small local groups to science centers to national museums, there’s a party fit for everyone! We encourage people everywhere to host their own event by providing tools to help grow The World Space Party.
Our organization is a 501(c)3 non-profit with a core mission to bring humanity together to dream about where we’re going, explore where we are, and celebrate where we’ve been. As an entity of the spacekind foundation, we support an expansive number of programs throughout the year that we believe follow our mission. We use the excitement and inspiration of space as a catalyst for educating and developing the next generation of explorers.
The concept of Yuri’s Night was first conceived by Loretta Whitesides, George T. Whitesides, and Trish Garner during the Space Generation Forum at the UNISPACE III Conference in 1999. The Vienna Declaration afterward set up a new World Space Week “between 4 and 10 October for the yearly celebration at the international level.” This event was timed to commemorate the launch of Sputnik 1 on October 4th and the signing of the UN Outer Space Treaty on October 10th. Wishing to specifically celebrate the human aspects of spaceflight, George and Loretta moved ahead with planning for the first Yuri’s Night event on April 12: a dual anniversary of human spaceflight achievements.
In 2000, Yuri’s Night was announced as an event in Los Angeles scheduled for the following year, 2001. Friends and colleagues, including those from the Space Generation Forum, asked to host their own celebrations around the world at the same time. The World Space Party was born and continues to rock the planet today!
Since our commemorative event in 2001, Yuri’s Night & the spacekind foundation have featured talks and presentations by Sir Richard Branson, Ray Bradbury, Will Wright, George Takei, Richard Garriott, Anousheh Ansari, and many others in the aerospace, art, science, and music industry. Our events have not only been hosted across our globe, but also in space, with parties at the South Pole, Hayden Planetarium, on Mars, and in orbit on the International Space Station. We also actively train the next generation of space leaders for organizations such as the National Space Society, Virgin Galactic, and Space Florida.
Our other spacekind foundation projects include sending pediatric cancer survivors and their families to Space Camp with the Cosmic Odyssey Scholarship, and recognizing people or teams that embody the Yuri’s Night mission by using music and art to make space cool with The Spirit of Yuri’s Night Award. We provide fiscal management of AstroAccess, a project in association with SciAccess to launch groups of disabled scientists, veterans, athletes, students, and artists on parabolic flights as the first step in a progression toward flying a diverse range of people to space.
In 2011, the 50th anniversary of human spaceflight, over 100,000 people attended 567 officially-recognized events in 75 countries across all 7 continents, while tens of thousands more watched the 12-hour live Yuri’s Night Global Webcast and participated online in the virtual world of Second Life.
Yuri’s Night is a project of The SpaceKind Foundation, a 501(c)3 non-profit bringing humanity together to dream about where we’re going, exploring where we are, and celebrating where we’ve been.
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Yuri’s Night is a global non-profit organization that celebrates the power of space to bring the world together. Yuri’s Night was founded on a set of guiding principles, grounded in a call from the planet’s first space explorer to come together to enhance and protect Earth:
“Circling the earth in my orbital spaceship I marveled at the beauty of our planet. People of the world, let us safeguard and enhance this beauty — not destroy it!”
— Yuri Gagarin, 1st human in space
We condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. We feel it is important to recognize that this war was chosen by the leader of Russia, and that many brave Russian citizens are protesting against the war every day, often at grave personal risk.
Our event honors Yuri Gagarin as the first human to orbit the Earth on April 12, 1961. Yuri’s Night also celebrates the cosmic coincidence of the first launch of the United States Space Shuttle happening 20 years later, to the day, on April 12, 1981. In 2011, the United Nations declared April 12 as the International Day of Human Spaceflight also to honor this historic conjunction, or sharing, of a space anniversary between former cold war rivals.
Yuri’s Night celebrates all that humanity brings with us as we explore the Cosmos: music, art, science, culture, and the best in each of us. Events around the world are powered by independent event organizers from all political backgrounds, nationalities, and ethnicities. We encourage everyone to celebrate in a way that resonates for them: there is no specific program, theme, or name required.
We use space to bring the world together, empower the best parts of who we are, and give vision to where we are going. Sometimes, that future is harder to imagine than others. This is why we set aside a time each year to remind ourselves as a species, of our unlimited potential.
We invite everyone, everywhere to pause in April to mark the importance of peace on Earth and in space, and to celebrate the potential of the human spirit.
Space has been an opportunity to show the possibility of peaceful human cooperation, and we hope that it continues into the future.
Thank you for your support,
Loretta Whitesides, Tim Bailey, and Chris Lewicki
Yuri’s Night Board of Directors
March 23, 2022
