(PRWEB) LOS ANGELES April 16, 2004

The brainy and the cool encircled the globe to commemorate the first human space flight, giving hope for the future and assurance that intelligent life exists on Earth.

Some of the most brilliant and unhyped stars were visible as human space flight was commemorated on April 12th in global celebrations known as 'Yuri's Night.' Celebrities, the young, the bold, and the brilliant, all space advocates, gathered at synchronized parties worldwide. The grass roots effort to celebrate Yuri Gagarin's 1961 orbit around the Earth and the first Shuttle twenty years later began in 2001, this year marking the fourth world rave.

In Los Angeles, VIP party guests included the first space-tourist Dennis Tito. Peter Diamandis, ISU Founder and Chairman-Founder of the X-Prize Foundation offering a $10 million prize to the first private group to build and fly a three-person spaceship to 100 km, was there. So was 'N Sync singer Lance Bass, a space enthusiast who actively advocates it on middle school tours. An opening address by legendary writer Ray Bradbury was incitement to inspiration. Guests were the brainy and the beautiful, in some cases both, such as Vanna Bonta, a writer-film artist whose acclaimed poetic novel FLIGHT (1996 Meridian) is a prescient fable of love and space generation ideal for a better world. Pioneer visionary Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry would've been fulfilled to witness the meeting of imagination and engineering as actress Nichelle Nichols, the smart, sexy Lieutenant Uhura of the vintage series, sat front row for the Earth and Space Foundation's presentation of the first Exploration Award to the NASA-JPL Mars Exploration Rover team. This night's pulse, to some of the best trance space music spun, was historic and future in the making.

The World Space Party at the futuristic Los Angeles International Airport Encounters Restaurant was one of 75 parties in 34 countries, joined by a toast from the crew on the International Space Station. Many parties were directly connected with each other through the Internet via streaming video, chat rooms, and email.

Yuri's Night Founders George Whitesides (newly appointed Executive Director of NSS) and Loretta Hidalgo hope that a show of global unity will move the planet away from current military preoccupations to something more constructive.

James Bernard Frost from Wired News reported, "In 10,000 years, will humans still be partying on the Fourth of July? Probably not. Bastille Day? Doubt it. The day humans first left their home planet? If we're still around to party, probably so."

"Circling the Earth in the orbital spaceship I marvelled at the beauty of our planet. People of the world! Let us safeguard and enhance this beauty - not destroy it!" - Yuri Gagarin
 

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