April Showers of Celebration

April will be filled with celebrations and I know that it will flyby in a blur. To avoid such an important month being lost in the noise I've decide to write about this month's pipeline. To summarize: Yuri's Night; Space Shuttle Endeavour STS-134 launch; MIT150 Exploration Symposium; and the birth of my first niece or nephew.

Click on "Read More" for videos and photos!

COUNTING DOWN TO APRIL 12TH

Yuri's Night has taken a big step forward this year surpassing 300 events globally with two weeks remaining until the main event. This may mean that we get close to 400 events this year, a significant jump from last year's 222. The 50th Anniversary of Human Spaceflight is a strong reason why people are interested in our event, but the executive did start earlier than usual to help get events registered, and the giant prizes we are offering for a sweepstakes and an ad campaign are brewing up a lot of positive attention. I'm hoping that the numbers will continue to climb and that we help bring the world together to celebrate space and understand it's importance to the future. There are three key videos that you need to see relating to Yuri's Night 2011. The first is a trailer produced by George Schellenger for our Video Contest; the second is a combination of video clips put together by the Association of Space Explorers at their XXIII Planetary Congress (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia); and the third is a short clip from Alexey Leonov's interview where he discusses the world's first extra-vehicular activity (EVA), or spacewalk. I've embedded the three videos for your viewing pleasure. All-in-all my goals for 2011 for event numbers were: I would be happy if we had +1 from 2010 to show growth; and extremely happy if we broke 300. I said if we hit 500 my mind would be blown and that Chris' 1000 events was definitely my dream goal too. So when we hit 300 events with 12 days remaining until Yuri's Night, I declared the 2011 Global Executive Team efforts a smashing success!

ENDEAVOUR'S LAST FLIGHT - STS-134 APRIL 19TH

With a LOT of effort we have a group going down to the watch the STS-134 launch of Endeavour! I'm not going to write much now, because I don't want to jinx it. Below are some photos I took (low res) of Discovery's final launch (STS-133) and Endeavour as it rolled from the Shuttle Processing Facility (SPF) Building 2 to the Vertical Assembly Building (VAB).

MIT150 EXPLORATION SYMPOSIUM APRIL 25-27

Helping coordinate the MIT150 Exploration Symposium "Earth, Air, Ocean and Space: The Future of Exploration" as the Event Director has been 120% of my work load at MIT. Besides writing five papers for the International Conference on Environmental Systems (ICES) and working outside of work hours on Yuri's Night, I've been burning the candle at more than both ends - but I'm sure it is going to be worth it! We have 34 speakers involved in our symposium; that's a lot compared to the other five MIT150 symposia. One of the major highlights will be the Astronaut Alum Panel that will feature 11 astronauts! Also, I will be moderating a panel on the Exploration Visions Panel I

and will have the opportunity to show some of my analogue research photos from the arctic, which I'm really excited about! My major goals are to have a full house (1,000 people) and have a global webcast with ~5,000+ viewers.

BABY KOBRICK APRIL/MAY 2011

My great grandfather Arthur Kobrick came to Ellis Island in the early 1900's from the USSR, now Poland, to become the first "Kobrick" in North America. We're not sure exactly how his name was spelt before, or in previous generations. Soon, in about a month, my brother Jason and sister-in-law Mary will give birth to the fifth generation Kobrick and I'm very excited for them! They've decided to wait until birth to know the sex, which I think is cool because I think I would want to do the same. Boy or girl, I'll be getting that kid it's first Leafs jersey and hockey net!

Space!

Ryan