Yuri's Night 2026: Celebrating 65 years of human spaceflight

On April 12th, 1961, Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space. Sixty-five years later, we celebrated that milestone at Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles, CA. We began on the lawn of Griffith Observatory, where host Sarah Al-Ahmed spoke with exhibitors about the tools, dreams, and technology that drive space exploration. Laura Tomlin, CEO of Space for Teachers, shares how microgravity research projects inspire the next generation. Robotics engineer Kalind Carpenter from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) walks us through the machines he's helping to build to explore the moon and beyond. Software engineer David Hernandez from Blue Origin describes the work happening at Club for the Future to get young people excited about space. Research scientist Robert Green from JPL talks about the invention of imaging spectroscopy and how it's used to unlock the secrets of distant worlds. And aerospace engineer Andy Sadhwani, who flew to space aboard Virgin Galactic, reflects on seeing Earth from above and what the Artemis II astronauts experienced. We then move inside for Yuri's Night's evening stage show, where the focus shifts to human experience and the overview effect. Cinematographer and polar explorer Jannicke Mikkelsen, Norway's first astronaut, shares her experience as part of the first crew to orbit over both Earth's north and south poles. Space philosopher Frank White, author of "The Overview Effect," leads a panel discussion with actress Nadine Nicole from The Expanse and commercial space explorer Christopher Huie about what happens to humans when we see Earth from space. Finally, NASA astronaut Ron Garan brings it all together with a powerful vision of our planet's fragility, our interconnectedness, and humanity's potential when we work together. The episode closes with Bruce Betts' What's Up segment, revealing a little-known story about what went wrong during Yuri Gagarin's historic first flight. Discover more at:

You can listen to Yuri's Night 2026: Celebrating 65 years of human spaceflight online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

Yuri's Night 2026: Celebrating 65 years of human spaceflight is an episode from Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and Science by The Planetary Society.

This episode is 59:40 long.

This episode was published on Apr 29, 2026.

Yes. Use the heart button on the episode page to add it to your favorite episodes list.

Yes. This page shows related episodes from Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and Science when more episodes are available from the podcast feed.