Yuri's Night Celebrated Around World for the 15th Year in a Row from Greenland to Antarctica

Los Angeles, CA, April 10, 2015 --(PR.com)-- In 2001 a few friends decided that the entire world needed a way to celebrate many decades of human achievement in reaching beyond our planet's atmosphere. In Russia and many former soviet republics, Cosmonautics Day has been celebrated each April 12 since the 1961 flight of Yuri Gagarin on that date. Noting the coinciding dates of Gagarin's flight and the first U.S. Space Shuttle flight (STS-1), the founders of Yuri's Night decided that April 12 should become a worldwide date to celebrate human progress in reaching the heavens.

14 years later, thousands of people around the world have celebrated and continue to celebrate human spaceflight on and around April 12. U.N. resolution A/RES/65/271 recognizes the date as the International Day of Human Spaceflight. Throughout this weekend in locales from Washington D.C. to Irkutsk, Russia and from Daejeon, South Korea to the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Research Station, Antarctica, people from all walks of life will be celebrating human spaceflight together.

Some of the Yuri’s Night events will be minor gatherings of friends and family, while others will feature government representatives and celebrities, such as astronauts Dr. Buzz Aldrin (in Colorado Springs), Dr. Mae Jemison (in Los Angeles), and Dr. Cady Coleman (in Cocoa Beach). Even the astronauts aboard the International Space Station in orbit 250 miles up are celebrating Yuri’s Night and NASA has released a special greeting for the event from commander Terry Virts.

Yuri’s Night Executive Director Dr. Ryan Kobrick noted that “This year as we celebrate the 54th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin’s flight, we are excited about the many changes in the spaceflight environment around the world. Russia is proposing its own successor to the International Space Station, the United States is developing not one, but many human-rated launch vehicles, and China is working on an ambitious space program of their own.” He reminded events around the world, “This is an exciting time to celebrate where we’ve been and where we are headed.”

Even fans of Yuri’s Night who are not near an event this year are invited to join in the fun on their favorite social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. They can also participate in multiple online events happening online for Yuri’s Night, such as an event in the Second Life virtual world and a live Google Hangout that Yuri’s Night is conducting with directors of the NASA New Horizons mission to Pluto.

To learn more about the many 2015 Yuri's Night events worldwide and how to find what Yuri's Night events are being held nearby, fans should visit the Yuri’s Night website at www.yurisnight.net and view the event list or global event map of events.