NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration

By: Jim Hodges

On Saturday night, Chris Brant, an Indiana sailor, and wife Jayme Murphy were by the rail on the roof of the Virginia Air and Space Center, admiring the lights of the Hampton harbor and listening to the pulsating reggae sounds of The Prisoners.

Nearby, people were stargazing through telescopes.

Volunteers from the Peninsula Astronomy Club offered their equipment and expertise to party-goers at Yuri's Night Hampton Roads.
Credit: NASA/Sean Smith

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Dancing entertainment included a martial arts dancing group called "Capoeira Resistencia."
Credit: NASA/Sean Smith.

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An overview of some guests at the Virginia Air and Space Center observing the laser light show and viewing the Apollo 12 capsule.
Credit: NASA/Sean Smith.

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Jamie Dugan from Norfolk won first place in the Yuri's Night Hampton Roads costume contest.
Credit: NASA/Sean Smith.

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Downstairs, Melanie Gayhead, who works at Hampton University, was sipping a Cosmopolitan with a plastic, light-generating "ice cube" and enjoying tunes offered by DJ Jeyone while talking about Amaris, her 8-year-old daughter with a NASA poster on the wall next to her bed.

In between, 1,200 people were walking, standing, eating, drinking, shouting over the music and checking out robots and space travel and aviation history and weather and all of the offerings of center that many had never visited, even though they live only a few miles away.

It was Yuri's Night, a Saturday party with a twist.

"What's good about this is they're visiting the galleries," said Todd Bridgford, executive director of the Air and Space Center. He likes it when people visit his galleries.

"They're actually learning something," Bridgford said.

A Saturday night party teeming with education? Go figure.

"I learned I weigh 326 pounds on Jupiter," said Brant, a slightly built 24-year-old.

"I weigh five pounds on Pluto," said Murphy. "I want to go to Pluto. Everyone should want to go to Pluto."

She laughed. There was a lot of laughing Saturday night in downtown Hampton, where people were educated and entertained, and where Mike Finneran's wish came true.

A year ago, Finneran had the idea for a Yuri's Night in Hampton. Finneran, who works on new media with the also new Strategic Relationships Office, read of the success of Yuri's Night celebrations elsewhere and pitched the idea of one connected with NASA's Langley Research Center.

"There are about 140 (for the record: 139 parties in 38 countries on six continents) of these around the world," said Finneran, who was impressed with the turnout. "It's just something I wanted to see happen."

To see it, he turned to a committee headed up by Rory Collins of the Science Directorate and Eileen Spillane of SRO, mostly because Yuri's Night is dedicated to turning on the 18-34 year old set to space and NASA's role in exploring it. And also Finneran believed that Collins and Spillane were more likely to know what would appeal to a 20-something.

Collins and Spillane were the people scurrying about Saturday night, the only ones in the building with worried looks on their faces.

"After eight months of planning, it's like waiting for the other shoe to drop," Collins said about halfway through Yuri's Night. "We put so much work into this. We had such high expectations. I keep waiting for something bad to happen."

At evening's end, she was still waiting.

The committee's last two weeks were frenetic, getting the word out about Yuri's Night. Everyone seemed to get it a different way.

"Radio," reported Brant and Murphy.

"The Air and Space Center's Web site," Gayhead said.

Newspaper stories. Flyers. Each promised what Saturday night delivered.

"The price is right," said Bridgford. "It’s very affordable."

The price was $5, and the food never ran out.

"For $5, are you kidding?" said Stephanie Holton, a Virginia Beach pre-school teacher who saw a flyer in the beach restaurant and decided to investigate.

"I didn't know what to expect," Holton said. "This is great."

Oh, and about Yuri.

"Who?" said "Phlip," a break dancer with a group called BOCA.

"It's Breaking Off Concrete Asphalt," said "Matt B Boy Woogz," who alternated with "Phlip" in claiming the dance floor for a half hour before turning it over to Rep. Glenn Nye (D-Virginia Beach), who spoke briefly.

"Is that a person?" "Phlip" asked about Yuri.

"First guy into space, right?" "B Boy" offered.

Right. Some knew. Others didn't. Some heard about something called Yuri's Night and headed straight to Google.

One probably knew more than any of the others.

"I think I learned it at age 7," said Tatiana Suh, a native of St. Petersburg, Russia, who lives in Newport News and was impressed with the party Saturday night. "If you say the name Yuri Gagarin (in Russia), 99 percent of the people from age 7 and up know of him."

Suh, who has been in the United States for 10 years, has an extra reason for remembering.

"He went into space on my father’s birthday," she said.

That was April 12, 1961. Her father was 15 on that day.

Gagarin died in 1968, seven years before Suh was born, but she remembered well the pride that Russian school children have in their nation's participation in the space race.

Gagarin's picture was evident Saturday night in a costume contest, won by Jamie Dugan, a 25-year-old from Norfolk who used the picture as part of a headpiece. The rest of his costume included pipe from the clothes dryer hookup, a red shirt with "CCCP" -- the English derivation of the old USSR -- and wings on his back that sort of resembled those of the space shuttle.

He won an iPod for his efforts, then explained that his after-party activity would involve delivering Sunday editions of the Virginian-Pilot in South Hampton Roads.

Until then, "I'm a cosmonaut," Dugan said.

The end of the costume contest signaled the end of the evening, and celebrants began to drift out of the Air and Space Center. Many had learned something of space, of flight and history. Most spoke of a good time and a few talked of a Yuri's Night next year.

"I think it was a party before the night ever began," said Finneran, referring to the 400 advance tickets sold.

About 1,200 people affirmed that, indeed, it was.    
 
NASA Langley Research Center
Managing Editor: Jim Hodges
Executive Editor and Responsible NASA Official: H. Keith Henry
Editor and Curator: Denise Lineberry