International Day of Human Spaceflight

Today is the International Day of Human Spaceflight!

This day is for the celebration of human exploration of space. It was on this day in 1961 that Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin (1934-1968) became the first human to go into space onboard Vostok 1. The word "vostok" means "east" or "Orient" in Russian. He completed one orbit around the Earth in 108 minutes, his craft launched from Kazakhstan, then known as the Kazakh SSR. This event, combined with the earlier launch of Sputnik 1 in 1957 (the word "Sputnik" means "satellite" in Russian), the first artificial object in space, kicked off the Space Race of the 1960s. 

On April 7, 2011, a few days before the 50th anniversary of Gagarin's trip to the stars, the United Nations General Assembly declared this day. However, this celebration is a bit older than that. You see, it was originally known as "Yuri's Night" in honor of Gagarin.

"Yuri's Night" was created by Trish Garner, Loretta Hildago Whitesides, and George T. Whitesides, and first held on this day in 2001, to honor the 40th Anniversary of the flight. These days are celebrated by space-themed parties at NASA centers and various other places. Events can be large or small, and held all over the world. Russia refers to this day as Cosmonautics Day.

This day also commemorates the first launch mission of the Space Shuttle Columbia, STS-1, which also happened on this day in 1981. That was actually not intentional. The Columbia had actually been intended to launch a couple of days earlier but got delayed due to a technical issue. 

The purpose of this day is to not just honor the brave men and women who traveled to the stars, but to also knowledge the pioneering innovations that came from man's desire to explore said stars. Wondering what is out there is a question people all over the world have asked for centuries. Maybe one day, we will meet intelligent life. This day is special to me as I was a nut for space as a kid. Still am in a way. I hope that one day, space travel will be as commonplace as it is in Star Trek. Thanks for reading this blog entry! If you like it, show it off! Take care of yourselves and each other! See you next time!