Celebrate Yuri’s Night, April 13

Join us as we celebrate Yuri’s Night, April 13, with podcasts that celebrate a look back on how far mankind has come in terms of space exploration. The name Yuri’s Night comes from the first human to ever go into space, Yuri Gagarin, in the spacecraft named the Vostok 1, on April 12, 1981. We honor Yuri’s brave voyage by celebrating milestones in space exploration.

Here are a few of our podcasts:

The New Afronaut

In Christina de Middel’s website, one can read the following: “In 1964 a Zambian science teacher named Edwuard Makuka decided to train the first African crew to travel to the moon. His plan was to use an aluminium rocket to put a woman, two cats and a missionary into Space”. Unfortunately the project never came to fruition but the expression, coined by Makuka, has been adopted in space culture. This podcast is an interview of Mandla Maseko, the first black African to travel into space, by Yvan Tina and Roger Malina.

A 9 Year Old Dreams of Space

Nine year old Jack T. Robertson shares his dreams of traveling into space… to the outer planets and beyond, in a video produced by Michael Ricciardi. For this Yuri’s Night podcast, Michael Ricciardi recollect memories of his experiences with space, art, and how it has impacted his life in discussion with Roger Malina.

Starbeasts: A Bio-Fiction Tour

Bio-Fiction is an art-science and film festival that explores the social, cultural and environmental ramifications of synthetic biology. Markus Schmidt, its founder, and Georg Tremmel, a Tokyo-based artist from Austria, are moving it for the first time in Japan. This edition follows a previous workshop (organized and produced by the Bioartsociety) that focused on the topic of exo/xenobiology.

Visit the Yuri’s Night Page for a full listing.