Yuri’s Night 2017

To celebrate Yuri’s Night this year, I helped to organize (through the Wellington Space Enthusiasts & Professionals)  a Meetup at Moon’s in Newtown.    I was hoping to get someone from Rocketlab or the newly formed New Zealand Space Agency to come, but after a few unsuccessful attempts, I decided to do it myself!   (those that know me understand that this is standard…)     I expanded my ‘History of Outer Space’ course lecture on the Soviet Space Program and traced the links in the chain from Nikolai Fyodorovich Fyodorov to Konstantin Tsiolkovsky to Friedrich Zander and Sergei Pavlovich Korolev that led to Gagarin’s successful flight.     I don’t get the chance to do these as much as I once did so it was great fun!