Dave Boch was in eighth grade when Russian astronaut Yuri Gagarin first orbited the earth.
“Growing up during the height of the space program was continuingly exciting,” Boch said.
Boch, a 64-year-old, retired math teacher from Ithaca, N.Y., remembers watching Gagarin’s journey on television. That was 52 years ago, on April 12, 1961.
“Yuri is still very much revered as a hero and a good person,” said Gabor Revesz, a half-Russian Ithaca, N.Y., resident. “It’s such an exciting time to live in. I constantly hear of them discovering more Earth-like planets, and ways that they could discover life.”
Since Russian astronaut Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space, NASA sent the first man to the moon, and multiple rovers — including Spirit, Opportunity and Curiosity — onto Mars.
“It looks like we’re in an era of instrumental, robotic exploration,” Boch said.
Boch and Revesz were two of the many celebrating Gagarin’s space flight and the exploration advances. April 12 —“Yuri’s Night” — is commemorated on 7 continents and 57 countries, and according to Yuri Night’s website, 351 parties were held this year around the world, from the U.S. and Russia to China, Japan and Sri Lanka.
“Like Yuri Gagarin did over fifty years ago, Yuri’s Night calls upon humanity to protect the beauty of planet earth while looking at the stars,” said Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield in a video promoting Yuri’s Night.
Kitty Gifford, a curator at Science Cabaret and the organizer Ithaca’s first Yuri’s Night celebration, started planning for the event this January.
“I thought it would be really fun to just recognize and show off what we’re doing locally as far as space exploration and remember how far we’ve come since the first human went to space,” Gifford said.
Ithaca’s first Yuri’s Night started with the Sagan Planet Walk and ended with a question and answer session on Mars exploration with Shoshanna Cole, a NASA Harriett G. Jenkins pre-doctoral fellow who studies the composition and orientation of rocks from Mars, which are about 3 billion years old.
Cole uses data from the rover Spirit to study these rocks and the ancient environments on Mars, but says it will take a few decades to bring back a physical rock sample from Mars.
“A sample return would probably be a few decades-long campaign with a few very expensive missions and people don’t want to spend that amount of money and I’m not sure we have that amount of money right now,” she said.
Cole, who named her dog Yuri after Gagarin, said she sees Mars as the new space frontier.
“We’ve been flying to space for half a century, but we don’t have anyone on Mars,” Cole said.
Paul Stewart, a PhD student from Sydney, Australia, said the Yuri’s Night event was an opportunity to take a look at the town as well as the solar system, and that he came away from the event with great information and perspective on the planet Earth.
“It’s always a little humbling to see that there are people out there that are able to do these kinds of things,” Stewart said. “In the same sense, it put into perspective how small our part of the universe is. The furthest we’re able to explore is this, which is still only just at our doorstep.”
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Qina Liu 