Hey Chasers!
Tomorrow the Chasing Atlantis team is getting their groove on for Yuri’s Night: The World Space Party!!
What’s Yuri’s Night? Yuri’s Night is 3 things all wrapped up into one bundle of space awesomeness
1) Yuri’s Night is a date: The date is April 12th which commemorates the first human in space. Yuri Gagarin completed an orbit of the Earth on April 12th 1961. We have had humans in space since that time sporadically and consistently since the construction of the International Space Station. But Yuri was the first! One brave human being, and certainly the first of many steps that led to the moon, shuttle, the space station, and hopefully the outer planets and deep space (sign me up BTW)
2) Yuri’s Night is a party! A World Space Party! As of the time I wrote this blog post, there are 320 parties scheduled across the globe in over 48 countries. Each party will host a celebration in their own way to commemorate the entry of our civilization into SPAAAACE from events like hanging out with Buzz Aldrin under the wing of Shuttle Endeavour to chilling out at the Museum of Flight in Seattle.
3) Yuri’s Night is an organization: Yuri’s Night is a not-for-profit organization that promotes space by providing an umbrella structure that catalyzes the Yuri’s Nights parties around the world, running competitions, and cross promoting with other partners with similar goals of advocating for space. You can check out their main page at http://yurisnight.net/ It also has some great information that provides more history on the Gagarin’s flight itself as well as the formation of the organization in 2001 (actually catalyzed through the United Nations. Very cool)
Now on this last point is where we come in. This year we are teaming up with Yuri’s Night and attending two of the parties. I will be at the Seattle party at the Museum of Flight and Paul will be in Toronto at Hotel Ocho (I hear there is space beer at this party) At these parties, we will be screening some of the new material we shot this past February during our Epic North America Tour (see here for Canada, here for Florida, and here for West Coast), and we will be selling our famously popular Chasing Atlantis T-shirts as a fundraiser for the last leg of the film (I also hear there may be giveaways on some of our swag!). And since the material is going online for Yuri’s Night, you may see some of it even if you are not at one of these two spots! Also, in light of Yuri’s Night, we are doing another round of our Chasing Atlantis YouTube Challenge! (You could be in our film!)
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_iZETpPpi4]So what should you do?
First, if you are near one of the two locations we are at, you should definitely come and introduce yourself. We’d love to geek out with you. Secondly, if you are not near one of these locations, but want to be part of the world space party, you should check out the Yuri’s Night website and see if there is a party near you! They are happening tomorrow! Finally, if you can’t get to a party in person, you can be a part of the event online by visiting Yuri’s Night Live http://live.yurisnight.net/ where you can find content being posted live for the event. (Actually if you check that site out now, there is already some awesome stuff on there from events past…including a laser pistol wielding Bill Nye the science guy)
We hope to see you tomorrow and congratulations to Yuri and our civilization for pushing into the final frontier!
-Matthew