Yuri’s Night–Party like an Astronaut
Yuri’s Night celebrates the human exploration of space. Coronavirus pandemic has transformed our earthling homes into our personal spaceships. Get ready to party like an astronaut!
Yuri’s Night, the annual “do it yourself” space holiday celebrated around the world on-or-around April 12, may be the first party naturally suited for planet earth’s new pandemic lifestyle.
In fact, Yuri’s Night has already been celebrated by the most socially-distanced, self-isolated human beings of all time:
Astronauts.
Like all of us with families, housemates, and roommates, astronauts live in close quarters with one another. They eat together, work together, and play together. And when there’s an occasion, they all party together.
Yes, astronauts at the International Space Station are separated from every other human being on earth by being 254 miles above us in low-earth orbit. And when we have holidays, they have holidays with us. Socially-distance, self-isolated holidays with all their friends and family and other planet-based celebrants down below on earth.
Which means right now astronauts and living in a spaceship are the best model there is for having a great party where everyone else in the whole entire rest of the universe is somewhere else.
In other words, we are not just practicing “social distancing” and “self-isolating”: Because of coronavirus we are all training to go to space!
In other words, THE ENTIRE PLANET IS TRAINING FOR SPACE MISSIONS.
Which brings us the the best party in all the solar system, Yuri’s Night 2020.
On April 12, 4pm PST / 7pm EST / 23:00 UTC, Yuri’s Night is live webcasting the biggest space party in the solar system and connecting together all the human beings from the comfort of our own “spaceships”–including astronauts aboard the International Space Station.
And helping create the earth’s first-ever united spaceship party are some of the best trained astronauts and space professionals in the galaxy:
Starting at 4pm Los Angeles time on April 11, Yuri’s Night 2020’s webcast will go live and unite us all in our spaceships all around the earth. Including the folks in most famous spaceship around, the International Space Station.
Special guests (including all the above) will be zoom’ing, facetime’ing, youtube’ing, IG’ing, and whatsapp’ing in to join us all in celebrating human exploration of space for Yuri’s Night 2020.
And in our spaceships–our homes–where we have all been getting crash courses in training for living in space as socially distanced astronauts, we are going to party together!
We will be joining the party on phones, computers, and television screens–via internet, phone signal, and satellite. We will have our favorite food and drink. It is the future and we are wearing costumes! And yes, kids are welcome.
For 20 years, at space parties and events around the globe, Yuri’s Night has been getting us ready for this moment. We all have our favorite space costumes ready to go. (Hashtag #partylikeanastronaut of course.) And in the most unexpected turn of events imaginable, on Saturday, April 11, we are all about to be at one of the best parties of our entire lives. Each of us in our own spaceship. In space and on earth.
For the first time in history, human beings are going to experience what it is like to be a space society. Each of us in our own spaceship, distanced and united. Isolated and together. And all of us loving one another from our individual spaceships everywhere. (And don’t forget in costume.)
The future is here. As of right now, humankind is spacekind.
In the words of our people, live long and prosper: We are about to party like astronauts!
LIVE — Saturday, April 11, 23:00 UTC / webcast.yurisnight.net
Mike Mongo is author of The Astronaut Instruction Manual. He is Special Advisor to Board of Students for Exploration of Space (SEDS), and co-chief engineer of Yuri’s Night Space Coast. Mr Mongo has learned from the students he teaches how we can solve every challenge we face on earth today–energy, health, sustainability, diversity, inclusion, even the illusion of scarcity–by solving for space.
