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World Space Party: Yuri’s Night!

Tonight is Yuri’s Night, the anniversary of the first human to make it into space and live to tell about it! Named after Yuri Gagarin, who took his epic ride on April 12th, 1961, this date is now used to celebrate all aspects of humanities continuing efforts to leave this gravity well. That first link will get you details to 183 events in 44 countries on 7 continents, so there will be something going on near you (unless you live way out to sea, in Antarctica, or along the full length of the former Siberia/Alaska land bridge and the lands it tied together). And even if you live in those places, or just don’t feel like driving, there are 9 Online Parties so you can celebrate with your friends at the Second Life International Space Flight Museum or Second Life Frontier Spaceport, the Foundation for Space Development at Mach30, and at Area 52, Outlands for you WoW folks (message HumanityPlus in-game for details, that event is on the 17th).

If you are a bit more serious than that, go for the Constellation Apps platform party, if you have the application development enviro installed, or hit NASA’s Third Rock Radio to listen to it all come down, or watch on SpaceVidcast online or on Roku. There are a lot more; find the one that works for you and join us in celebrating mankind’s attempt to escape this cosmic trap, and survive through the ensuing millennium.

Space Bordello

It is in Nevada, not outer space, but I figured if I called the post Alien Bordello all of my hits would probably come from the INS, rather than someone interested in sleeping with an Orion Slave Girl or the like. Which actually might be appropriate, since I feel confident any aliens on the premises would be crossing national borders to work there rather than extraterrestrials. But according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, a new brothel called the Area 51 Alien Travel Center will have everything short of a theme park and be targeting the Captain Kirk wannabe’s passing through the state. If this had been built in the 50s, 60s, or even 70s it might have been a big deal, and pulled in a lot of money from the pocket protector set (of which I am one). But apparently they haven’t heard that Nerds and Geeks have been cool for the last several decades, and mostly have girlfriends these days; except for those nerds and geeks who ARE the girlfriends, and they all have boyfriends. So I am a bit confused about exactly who they think the target audience is going to be. Anyways, thanks to The Taylor Network by way of the Sci-Fi Party Line News for the heads up on this one.

SETICon

How could I avoid mentioning it? It is not quite a Sci-Fi con, but some of the same people will be there. SETI Con is a convention centered around the question of where everybody is… everybody that didn’t evolve on this planet, that is. It is coming up August 13th through the 15th in Santa Clara, CA., and will be running four tracks: Main, Science, Education, and Q&A. The panelists and speakers lean heavily to the sciences (with a whole subsection just for the astronauts), but includes Sci-Fi Authors, some of whom are scientists, and Sci-Fi actors, one of whom is also an astronomer. And if it wasn’t already obvious to you, this party is put together by the SETI Institute, and yes, SETI does stand for the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. Thanks to the bloggers at Discovery for the heads up on this one.