Edit by Loretta Y. Hidalgo
4/27/2007
By George Whitesides and Loretta Hidalgo Whitesides
It’s been 46 years since Russian Yuri Gagarin became the first man to circle the Earth in a spacecraft, launching from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on April 12, 1961.
Twenty years later to the day, the Space Shuttle Columbia launched on its inaugural flight from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida carrying astronauts John Young and Robert Crippen.
Those two events bookend what is now called the golden age of space exploration, an era in which humans learned how to make those first steps into space, probe the Solar System with robots, and land men on the moon and return them safely to Earth.
If you’re under the age of 25, all of this happened before you were born, yet it’s exciting to see young people all over the world interested in space and celebrating space through Yuri’s Night.
It’s also gratifying to see NASA reach out to these young people by supporting Yuri’s Night. The recognized flagship event was held Friday, April 13 at NASA’s Ames Research Center near San Francisco. It was a fantastic success.
The event – called the “Science and Sounds Expo” – engaged young people from the Bay area with NASA’s latest research and initiatives, including the Vision for Space Exploration, in one of America’s most important and vibrant metropolitan areas.
The Vision is the nation’s plan to continue using the Space Shuttle to finish assembly of the International Space Station. Then the new Ares rockets will launch the new Orion spacecraft, returning humans to the moon by 2020. The next step will be Mars and points beyond.
More than 120 celebrations of Yuri’s Night took place on April 12 and 13 on six continents. More than 30 events were held in the United States, all in celebration of the possibilities that space offers for the future of humanity.
Thanks to the Vision for Space Exploration, today’s college students can be among the first to return to the moon and walk the lunar surface.
If you like your soil more rust-colored, then look to today’s elementary kids who will have the chance to become real Martians, if they stay in school, study hard and take a lot of science and math.
There’s no doubt young people are truly excited and passionate about space, and are actively looking for avenues to get engaged in showing their support.
Elected officials should take note of this group. Those that can vote want a vibrant, innovative, well-funded space program. And those that can’t vote -- yet -- want the same thing and will support those candidates that are as concerned about the future as they are.
In the meantime, there are many ways for space-interested youth to get involved. Step one is to visit www.spaceadvocate.com and count yourself among those who actively support the space program. Getting involved with the National Space Society, www.nss.org, Students for the Exploration and Development of Space, www.seds.org, and the Space Generation, www.spacegen.org, are other great ways to get involved.
There are so many ways to plug in.
For some, plugging in may actually mean working on the Orion program, or a new satellite, or an entrepreneurial space venture. For others, it may mean publishing a blog about space, or visiting the NASA island in Second Life, or surfing through the latest Mars images on NASA's archive.
For still others, it may mean organizing a Yuri's Night event next year.
And there’s the environmental angle. Space gives us a perspective of Earth that can be both inspiring and practical-- providing data for climate change models. We are interested in exploring all the ways space can be used to make a difference here on Earth. Preserving our planet is a critical issue for our generation.
That is another reason we celebrate Yuri. As Gagarin observed following his historic orbit in 1961: "Circling the Earth in my orbital spaceship, I marveled at the beauty of our planet. People of the world, let us safeguard and enhance this beauty — not destroy it!"
Loretta Hidalgo Whitesides and George Whitesides are the co-creators of Yuri's Night. Loretta is executive director of Yuri’s Night. George is executive director of the National Space Society and a member of the Coalition for Space Exploration.