Next week will mark the 49th anniversary of the day Yuri Gagarin became the first person ever to leave the planet, on April 12, 1961. In just under two hours, Gagarin launched from what is now Kazakhstan, orbited the planet once, landed nearby and was immediately a Soviet hero and international sensation, propelling the planet irrevocably into the Space Age. Exactly twenty years later, April 12, 1981, the space shuttle Columbia lifted off from Kennedy Space Center as the inaugural space shuttle mission. After nearly 30 years of science and low Earth orbit exploration, the space shuttle’s final mission will be this September. And so twenty years later, on April 12, 2001, Yuri’s Night was born, a party to celebrate space. The tenth Yuri’s Night will commence this weekend, and one of the biggest celebrations will be just down the road at NASA Ames Research Center.

Perhaps the word party, however, doesn’t do justice to the magnitude of Yuri’s Night. At its outset, Yuri’s Night was celebrated in 64 cities around the planet, and that number has now reached over 150, including celebrations on all seven continents (yes, that includes the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station), 53 countries, as well as on the International Space Station, which will be hosting the Space Shuttle Discovery. The parties are a unique combination of technological expositions, cultural celebrations and wild, outlandish fun.

Two years ago, my house applied for an education grant to attend the festivities, courtesy of the wonderful folks at Residential Education. Bedecked with glow sticks, as we passed by Hangar One, the eight acre New Deal era airship hangar, we descended upon a truly amazing scene. Both amateurs and professionals were showing off functional airplanes, flying saucers and fire-breathing robots; leaders in the space community spoke of visions of the future; scientists discussed their latest research and, as night fell, there was an enormous dance party inside one of the hangars. In attendance were several astronauts, including Buzz Aldrin, as well as tens of thousands of people. Needless to say, a good time was had by all.

Yuri’s Night was realized through the Space Generation Advisory Council, a U.N. affiliated NGO, and one of the founders was Stanford alumna Loretta Hidalgo Whitesides ’96. It’s incredible how the effort of a few dedicated people has blossomed in just a decade, and inspirational to any Stanford student that wants to change the world. The vision behind the movement was to create a truly global celebration of space, in an effort to show how small the world really is. In many ways, one of the best ways to gain an appreciation for the only planet we have is by leaving it.

First time astronauts often report a sense of wonder in seeing the whole planet for the first time without lines in the sand marking borders, and a sense of belonging to the planet, rather than to a city or a nation. Voyager 1 is a spaceship that is currently over 10 billion miles away, the man-made object farthest from the Earth. At the behest of Carl Sagan, Voyager was turned around just before leaving the solar system, and snapped a seminal astronomy picture, which has been called the “Pale Blue Dot.” In the picture, the Earth is a mere speck in which, to paraphrase Sagan, all of human history, each birth, each death, each success, each failure, each war, each peace treaty and each NCAA Women’s Basketball Championship game (awesome season guys!) transpired. Some might see this picture as an example of the insignificance of Earth. I prefer to see it as a majestic wake-up call to the vast wonder of the universe and how much left there is to explore, as well as an indication of how small the world is and how connected we all are.

Yuri’s Night at Ames this year will take place April 9 and 10, and has an impressive line-up of speakers and performers. Richard Garriot, the world’s first second-generation astronaut, and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak will both be on hand to talk about their life experiences, among many others. Musical performances range from Les Claypool to Common. Art installations have names such as “Raygun Gothic Rocketship” and “The Serpent Mother,” which is actually described as “A 180′-long, audience-controlled fire-breathing animatronic snake who is protecting her egg.” Once more for emphasis: you can control a fire-breathing robot snake half as long as Hoover Tower is tall.

When President Kennedy announced the Apollo Program in 1962, he galvanized the nation around a singular ambition to put a person on the moon by the end of the decade. The incredibly ambitious mission was an astounding success, but achieved far more in inspiring a new generation of aspiring scientists and explorers around the world. We celebrate for many reasons in life–for cultural holidays, to honor those important to us and to gloat over beating Cal. But perhaps there is no greater celebration than one glorifying the indomitable resilience of the human spirit to forever expand its potential and horizons into the future.

If you want to fly a Raygun Gothic Rocketship this weekend, let Jack know at [email protected]. For more information, check out www.ynba.org.