#OA4 Cygnus scrubs and launch weekend with Rafi visiting Atlantis! #RNK

As VIP guests, Jen and I were able to take Rafi to visit Atlantis for the first time before the United Launch Alliance launch attempt of Orbital ATK's Cygnus OA4 mission to the ISS on an Atlas V. Thank you to +Carl Carruthers and +NanoRacks! Jen and I were busy posing Rafi in silly ways +Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex :-) 

Rafi's first visit to Atlantis!

Yuri's Night 2015 Beach Report. Personal highlights from Cape Canaveral and Cocoa Beach #YurisNight

Leading up to Yuri's Night in the Media

This year I was lucky enough to discuss +Yuri's Night with a few media outlets. I was excited to see my photo end up on the front page of the 2nd section of the +FLORIDA TODAY in an excellent article by James Dean.

Front page of section 2! Seeing the news in print is always more exciting than online.

I'm on TV! +News 13's Jerry Hume came to Bacchae for an interview about the events in Florida.

Live from #LSA5, it's a rocket launch! SpaceX launches #CRS6 on 2nd attempt.

Another successful launch to the +International Space Station for +SpaceX! I was able to join +NanoRacks for the VIP watching on the first attempt, but unfortunately, like each CRS before this one, it was scrubbed. I was happy to see Chris Lewicki, a fellow Board member of +Yuri's Night and his team from +Planetary Resources. The 2nd attempt went off perfectly as the weather was more favorable. I had a great view with other attendees at the 5th International Workshop on Lunar Surface Applications on Cocoa Beach.

+Chris Lewicki hanging out at OSB II before the launch waiting for +Planetary Resources Arkyd 3 payload. Unfortunately the first attempt was a scrub.

There she goes! Everyone was looking a bit too far to the right, but found it pretty quickly as she rose over the horizon.

Watching the launch with attendees at the 5th International Workshop on Lunar Surface Applications in Cocoa Beach. What a great (and lucky) add on for a conference!

The long view. We were able to watch the rocket all the way to MECO of the first stage. I spent the next ~5 minutes on the beach trying to spot the first stage relighting, but it snuck by. It did come close to landing on the SpaceX barge!

The official stats:

April 14	Falcon 9   •  SpaceX CRS 6
Launch time: 2010:41 GMT (4:10:41 p.m. EDT) Launch site: SLC-40, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched the eighth Dragon spacecraft on the sixth operational cargo delivery mission to the International Space Station. The flight is being conducted under the Commercial Resupply Services contract with NASA. Delayed from Dec. 5, Feb. 4, April 8 and April 10. Scrubbed on April 13. Read our full story. [April 14]

Space!

Ryan

Yuri's Night 2014 hits the beach! Cape Canaveral and Cocoa Beach Celebrate #YurisNight!

Since I've been getting questions about where people can go celebrate +Yuri's Night on the Space Coast, I decided to post this summary so I could cut/paste one link to send around! I'm co-hosting the Space Coast Rocket Pub Crawl and it should be a great time! Rock the Planet!

FRIDAY APRIL 11

1.     Yuri's Night Kick Off with the 4th International Workshop on Lunar Science Applications (LSA 4)

·      Courtyard by Marriott Cocoa Beach-Port Canaveral

·      3435 N Atlantic Ave, Cocoa Beach, FL 32931

·      5:30pm to 8:30pm

·      https://mcc.yurisnight.net/parties/2306-lsa-4-yuri-s-night-kick-off-event/

2.     Yuri’s Night Central Florida International Space Apps Challenge Hang Out

·      Cocoa Beach Brewing Company

·      150 N Atlantic Ave, Cocoa Beach, FL 32931

·      8:30pm

·      https://mcc.yurisnight.net/parties/2362-central-florida-space-apps/

·      APRIL 12/13: Kennedy Space Center International Space Apps Challenge: https://2014.spaceappschallenge.org/location/kennedy-space-center/

SATURDAY APRIL 12

3.     Yuri’s Night Space Coast Rocket Bike Pub Crawl

·      Join us for this tour de bar across Cape Canaveral and Cocoa Beach to celebrate the 14th Annual Yuri's Night!

·      11am La Cantina Mexican Bar & Grill

·      12pm - Dotty's Bar

·      1pm - Hogan's Irish Pub

·      2pm - Grahams Beach Grill

·      3pm - Jump's Tiny Tavern

·      4pm – 6pm Oh Shucks Seafood Bar

·      http://bike.yur.is

4.     Yuri’s Night Soviet Block Wines

·      Enjoy a night of wines from countries that once were in the Eastern Block!! We will feature some beautiful Bulgarian and Romanian Wines!! Dessert, White, and Red!!!!

·      Bacchae Wine Bar, Cape Canaveral

·      7090 N Atlantic Ave., Cape Canaveral, FL 32920

·      7pm

·      https://www.facebook.com/events/1413706245558404/

2013 Yuri's Night Highlights to Inspire the [Mass]es to Join the 2014 Team!

Let's jump to the end: Join the Party! +Yuri's Night (YN) 2014 Global Executive Team (GET) Applications are now being accepted until July 22 (Link to apply), with the new team members announced approximately August 15th.

Momentum = [mass] multiplied by [velocity], where velocity is the distance traveled over time. In YN non-profit terms = [awesome GET volunteers] multiplied by [YN Attendees shaking their @$$es on the dance floor over time]. After 13 years of continual growth, Yuri's Night has established a well oiled GET machine, but as mentioned above, we are looking for more [mass]. In order to enthuse you about 2014 and consider signing up, it's important to consider the 2013 highlights. I've picked my Top 5 from 2013 and whay they were important to me personally, and added honorable mentions below that. Our media team also did a great job of covering the highlights in this post: http://yur.is/14KkYIs

Highlight 1: #CSATweetUp

The +Canadian Space Agency hosted their first TweetUp event in Western Canada  in partnership with Yuri's Night and the Telus World of Science Edmonton to celebrate YN with over 500 students, 25 #CSATweetUp participants, thousands of people watching online, and VIP +Chris Hadfield live from the +International Space Station! My favorite quote from Chris that day was: "When you have the world at your window, it’s hard to go to sleep at night." This event was personally very near and dear to my heart because I grew up in Toronto and CSA was an influence to my space education upbringing and then later in my graduate studies (IACs in particular). I could sense the enthusiasm of young Canadians via the webcast and I hope they chase their dreams to fly into space. It was great to work with the CSA to set up this really cool Yuri's Night, with the rare live link to space!

Highlight 2: Greetings from Mars

Tweet #2: "Happy #YurisNight! Celebrate the anniversary of human spaceflight w/an event near you: http://yurisnight.net"

We went interplanetary for the first time! I think this highlight speaks for itself from these two Tweets. We had been in touch with the Mars Curiosity team months ago and they weren't sure if they could participate. Then we pinged them again the afternoon before Yuri's Night to ask one more time, a few hours and many emails later, the party was set for the Red Planet! Thank you JPL and Team Curiosity! Also check out the Facebook post: URL.

Highlight 3: Ground Control to Commander Hadfield

You already know that +Chris Hadfield is awesome and his YN support along with the +Canadian Space Agency is why they were awarded the 2013 Spirit of Yuri's Night Award. Chris recorded this video in space for the world in celebration of YN, but what you may not know is that +Brice Russ and I helped write the talking points / script. Thank you CSA and Chris (again) for being such an inspiration and we hope to work with you in the future.

Highlight 4: Shuttle Californication

Posted to Yuri's Night Live: Space Shuttle Endeavour at the Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center at the California Science Center during Yuri’s Night Los Angeles 2013. Credit: Tess Valmore, LA, CA.

Party under Space Shuttle Endeavour? F-yeah! Yuri's Night Co-Creator Loretta Hidalgo Whitesides ran this blockbuster Yuri's Night Los Angeles (YNLA) with over 700 celebrating space under the Shuttle. My personal connection in this story is that Loretta (and George) recruited me as a volunteer for Yuri's Night 2003 during my International Space University internship at the +XPRIZE Foundation. 2003 was my YN start and I'm sure YNLA 2013, 10 years later, will inspire the people who will fill the current GET's shoes. It could and should be you! Speaking of shoes, Buzz Aldrin's shoe was swabbed for science by +Science Cheerleader Taylor and the sample may be flown to space on Space Florida and +NanoRacks' International Space Station Research Competition (ISSRC) with Project MERCURRI. Check out this YNLA 2013 video!

Highlight 5: The Winning Lotto Numbers are 356 - 57 - 7 - 2

Success should be quantified. The way we do that at Yuri's Night is by showing continual growth in our party count. I was proud to lead a team that crushed our previous event count in 2012 (222 events) with 356 this year! We had events in 57 countries and on all 7 continents. We reached Mars for the first time and Rocked two Planets!

Honorable Mentions

There are many more highlights that deserve a whole blurb, but here are the relevant links or stories that are good to know about from 2013:

• Our GET member Fatemeh helped ~27 events get started in Iran. This is amazing and a shinning example of how one person can help connect their region to a global space community.
• LeVar Burton recorded a video for us!
• We opened a new website thanks to +Jason CranfordTeague's wicked design.
• We opened our MCC 2 system for events to register.
• There was a laser show on the side of a building in Russia
•  We rebooted Yuri's Night Live and received submissions from around the world: http://live.yurisnight.net/
• Giant Party in NL!
• Getting mentioned in NASA's Sequestration Notice... that was unfortunate for the centers that had to cancel events.
• Being part of the 2012 Get Curious campaign that had events across the world celebrating the Mars Curiosity landing Aug. 5 (my wedding date).
• Cocoa Beach events! I help organize a night party at Nolan's Irish Pub and a BBQ the next day at the Cocoa Beach Brewing Company with +Chris Shaffer. It was great to get back in the driver seat and help create local events and connect other Space Coast events. Here's the limerick toast I wrote for the event:

Back to the beginning, which was the end. Are you [mass]? Come join the party and help write history in 2014!

Space!
Ryan

P.S. In case you completely missed it [mass] = [awesome GET volunteers]!
P.P.S. I was going to write about how the 2014 Olympics are in Russia before Yuri's Night, but we can save that for a different blog post.
P.P.P.S. 2014 is also the 10th Anniversary of SpaceShipOne's historic three flights!

New Yuri's Night Digital Art to Share @YurisNight Rock the Planet! #RTP

Yuri's Night New York City 2012

"Life creates it, makes it grow. Its energy surrounds us and binds us." No I'm not talking about the Force (this time), I'm talking about space art. From my last blog post you may have seen a photo from a talk I gave at +Yuri's Night New York City 2012 at the National Arts Academy. At YN NYC I discussed how art inspired and influenced me to pursue technology endeavors, dream big dreams, and reach for the stars. Well in addition to my technical side, there is an 'arts side'. I've always enjoyed taking photos, creating short films, and when I get inspired I try to put together digital "art" for Yuri's Night. Yuri's Night brings people from different walks of life together to celebrate our past, present and future in human spaceflight exploration. The only way we can properly conceptualize the future is to work together to solve the big problems that surround us. The newest set of images in my YN art (I use the term art loosely and open for interpretation) was inspired by my love for puzzles. Puzzles fascinate me and I have a knack for spatial orientation, just ask my SCUBA buddies. It's amazing how hundreds of unique pieces can fit harmoniously together and create a beautiful picture. That's how I see humanity. We are all unique, and if connected correctly we can create amazing things working together.

If you are interested in creating digital art or have some great ideas for other fun projects with Yuri's Night, please contact me or email the team: info@yurisnight.net. Without further rambling here's the set of three images! If you want to see my past images please visit my public Facebook album. Feel free to use these for your Yuri's Night event(s) (for higher resolution please contact me directly), and don't forget to register at www.yurisnight.net, Rock the Planet!

Space!

Ryan

My 10 Years of Yuri's Night in Photos, Поехали! Cc: @YurisNight

I've been connected to the global phenomenon of Yuri's Night, the World Space Party, for over 10 years. This April will be my 11th year participating and I figured the best way to capture my history was through photos. The post contains the last 10 years in review in anticipation for 2013 and I hope it inspires others to host events around the world. The trip down memory lane picking photos was well worth the time it took to assemble this post. "Not only am I the Executive Director, I'm an event co-organizer! --> Yuri's Night Cocoa Beach April 12th and 13th, and I'm helping the Space Coast set up other events: http://spacecoast.yurisnight.net/ I'd be happy to answer questions about the photos in the comments. ROCK THE PLANET!

Space!
Ryan

2003 - Los Angeles, CA, USA

Volunteering for Yuri's Night LA - JPL Family Day at the Santa Anita Race Track taking photos of kids and Photoshoping them into astronaut spacesuits.	Encounter at LAX
Loretta [Hidalgo] and George Whitesides, YN co-creators and superstars	Aarti and I representing ISU MSS '03
The after party and Loretta's birthday party

10 Years Ago Today: My 1st X PRIZE day with Peter Diamandis ended with meeting Loretta (Hidalgo) & George Whitesides and Buzz Aldrin!

10 years ago today was my and Talmon Firestone’s first working day with +Peter H. Diamandis at the +X PRIZE Foundation (Santa Monica, CA) as part of our International Space University (ISU) MSS internship (Module 4 of 5). After a solid brainstorming day about our MSS thesis projects, Peter took us to a deli in Westwood LA. It was some sort of space gathering, I can’t recall which group, but it was the day I met the spacey couple +Loretta Whitesides (Hidalgo) and +George Whitesides (now married with two kids). Sitting across the table from me they jumped right into recruiting me for +Yuri's Night LA 2003. Since Yuri’s Night was only 2 years old, I didn't know about the event yet, but I was instantly sold after the phrase “World Space Party” was casually mentioned. The other #10YearsAgoToday event coming up will be the anniversary of my first Yuri’s Night (LA) meeting, March 5th 2003. 2013 will be my 11th year working on Yuri’s Night and in addition to my Executive Director / BoD role, I'm helping run events along the Space Coast: http://spacecoast.yurisnight.net/ 

The conversation was great and all of a sudden there was a buzz in the air, actually it literally sounded like ”it’s Buzz”; “Buzz…” Moonwalker Buzz Aldrin strutted into the deli and joined our group. He sat down next to me. Eeeee! As many of you already know, I’m a lunatic. I look up at the Moon all the time and dream of exploring the oceans (Mare) and highlands. I wasn't completely celebrity/hero shocked, but able to attempt a conversation. We both had the matzo ball soup by coincidence, and I think our conversation was about complaining about its quality. No one makes soup better than Bubie! Since that lunar encounter I have had several opportunities to meet and work with Buzz and Peter including MIT’s 150th Exploration Symposium that I helped run with Prof. Dava Newman during my Postdoc at the Man-Vehicle Laboratory. It was from that moment forward that I felt like the Forrest Gump of the space industry with all the amazing people I kept meeting and events I attended. Hopefully there are plenty more exciting memories and photos ahead! 

The most import moral of this rambling story, photos are worth a million words and I’m thankful my iPhone has enough resolution to snap candidate photos now, 10 years after this magic moment. 

Space! 

Ryan

From left to right: Me (Ryan Kobrick), Peter Diamandis, Buzz Aldrin, and Talmon Firestone
[Photographer was either Loretta or George Whitesides]