On April 12th, 1961, the 27 year-old son of a farmer changed the world in a little over an hour and a half. His name was Yuri Gagarin, and as he parachuted back to Russia after ejecting from his Vostok spacecraft, he became forever known as the first human being to go into outer space.
At the time, Gagarin's flight was viewed with equal parts anger, embarrassment, and trepidation in the U.S., where the Soviet Union was a constant menace whose space program seemed to foreshadow missile deployments. But the end of the Cold War and cooperation on projects like the International Space Station have diffused the tension, and April 12th has since become a cause for celebration, a cultural holiday for space enthusiasts around the world. It's an annual reminder of just how remarkable the human exploration of space is: costs and benefits can be debated, but it's pretty life-affirming to look up at the Moon and realize that men have bounced around up there. We became a cosmic species on April 12th, 1961, and while we might not have gotten as far as many might have hoped in those heady days of the early Space Age, we've never looked back. Hopefully this year, as American human spaceflight looks forward to an existential crisis, Yuri's Night can help propel us forward.
The Yuri's Night concept gained the UN's blessing in 2000, and the celebrations began in 2001, on the 40th anniversary of Gagarin's flight. Speeches and parties were organized around the world, and after steady growth over the last decade, Thursday's 2012 edition will see revelers at 186 events in 44 countries on all 7 continents, from Shumen, Bulgaria to Kathmandu, Nepal.
Somehow I've never made it to Yuri's Night, but on Thursday I'll be checking out the LA edition - in which space geeks descend on a Hollywood club, possibly leading to a culture clash-induced black hole. Click here for your local event.
