Partying on the anniversary of Gagarin's flight

Kate Arkless Gray, contributor

I can only think of two reasons you'd want to wear earplugs at NASA.

The first is that you've somehow wangled yourself a ticket into the VIP area for a shuttle launch, and the second is Yuri's Night.

Not your average science-based party, Yuri's Night at NASA's Ames Research Centre boasts three music stages (two in aircraft hangars), a high-profile programme of speakers, an airshow and a 13-metre-high 1950s-sci-fi-style space rocket art installation.


The largest of all the global parties celebrating Yuri Gagarin's historical journey into space on 12 April 1961, and also the launch of NASA's shuttle programme exactly 20 years later, the event at NASA's Ames in Mountain View, California, spanned two whole days.

The first was dedicated to education and outreach, and I watched as excitable groups of school children lined up to launch their hand-made paper rockets across the airfield and posed for pictures pretending they were on the moon, using a seaside-style cutout.

Day two was supposedly for the adults, and as I wandered around among the people dressed variously as aliens, frogs and sesame street characters, I almost felt out of place without a jumpsuit on, pretending to be either a US astronaut or Russian cosmonaut.

A range of NASA scientists and others spoke on topics ranging from smashing stuff into the moon on the LCROSS mission, to telescopes with wings.

I listened as games entrepeneur and private space explorer Richard Garriott talked of how living with an astronaut father, and astronaut neighbours on both sides, made him believe that going into space was normal.

His need for glasses ruled him out of being a NASA astronaut himself, but that wasn't enough to stop him finally following in his father's footsteps into space, using some of the cash he'd earnt via the gaming industry.

As the world's sixth private astronaut, he wasn't under the usual PR constraints faced by most space travellers, and thus went into some detail about the problems of going to the loo in space. A tale that was both hilarious, and disturbing, at once.

The Spaceward Bound rover team showed off their creations, allowing festival-goers to try their hand at driving the small robotic vehicles over a range of obstacles, while project leader Chris McKay spoke engagingly about the search for life on Mars.


Serious science was combined with a heady mix of art, music and a show-stopping airshow in which three pilots took it in turns to show off their incredible aerobatic skills.

Bassist Les Claypool (of Primus) took to the main stage and wowed the crowds as the sun set. He played a variety of increasingly unusual looking incarnations of bass, with the iconic Hangar One providing the backdrop to his set. Had it not been for the number of people sporting light-up NASA logo badges and ill-fitting space-suits, you could have easily mistaken this for a decent-sized outdoor music festival.

To steal a phrase from Claypool: "NASA - who'da thunk it?"

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