Yuri's Night Celebration

Time: Monday, April 12, 2010 - 7:00pm - 9:00pm

Event Type: Special Event

Location: Museum of Flight

Yuri's Night is the world wide celebration of human spaceflight. On April 12, 1961, Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human to orbit the Earth on a spacecraft from the Soviet Union. On April 12, 1981, the US Space Shuttle, STS-1, launched for the first time from the NASA Kennedy Spaceflight Center with astronauts Capt. John Young and Capt. Bob Crippen, becoming the world's first reusable spaceflight vehicle, capable of flying up to eight astronauts to and from earth orbit.

In honor of Yuri's Night, Museum President and CEO Dr. Bonnie J. Dunbar will present a special program on her fourth spaceflight mission, STS-71, which was the first orbital docking of the United States Space Shuttle to the Russian Space Station, MIR, in June 1995.  This record setting flight was the first joint operations between the two countries since the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project (ASTP) docking in 1975, 20 years earlier during the height of the Cold War.  She will also share details for her 13 months of training in the Russian Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, Russia. Dunbar will follow with a discussion of the current International Space Station, with laboratories from both countries, and audience dialog about the current needs for STEM education and future international exploration goals. Program will be held Monday, April 12 at 7 p.m. in the Allen Theater. Admission is $5 for Museum members and $10 for general public.

Other international Yuri's Night celebrations can be viewed at: http://yurisnight.net/