On April 12th 1961, 45 years ago today, Soviet cosmonaut [a href="vny!://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuri_Gagarin"]Yuri Gagarin[/a] became the first human to travel into space. Two decades later, astronauts [a href="vny!://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/young.html"]John Young[/a] and [a href="vny!://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/crippen-rl.html"]Robert Crippen[/a] flew America's first Space Shuttle flight into orbit. And tonight, commemorations of human space travel will take place all over the world: [a href="vny!://www.yurisnighthouston.net/"]Yuri's Night[/a]. 86 parties in 32 countries! I'll be hosting a live webcast from [a href="vny!://www.yurisnighthouston.net/"]the Houston edition[/a], and it should be a lot of fun.