APRIL 25, 2009 - The Great Space Race

The ’60s were an exciting time; humans took their first steps into the greatest remaining frontier – Outer Space! The Soviet science team was the first to break orbit with the launch of the Sputnik satellite in 1957, followed by cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin in April 1961. The Americans, who had been lagging behind in the Great Space Race, caught up with the flight of Alan Shepard – the second human and first American in space – on May 5, 1961.

To celebrate this momentous time in space travel, 826 Seattle and The Greenwood Space Travel Supply Co. hosted The Great Space Race on April 25th.

11AM – 12NOON – Rocket Races

Team Robo-Frog took home the award for fastest rocket!

12NOON – 1:30PM – The Great Flash Fiction Workshop and Reading

Yuri Gagarin’s inaugural flight lasted 108 minutes and what he saw while orbiting the Earth has never been accurately recorded. To commemorate this achievement, students and adults wrote flash-fiction stories and shared them with an audience of several. An example follows:

Sitting in my cramped space capsule, staring at the blinking lights and listening to the crack and fuzz over the radio, I realized with a jump in my chest that I was heading to places unvisited by others. I’d been over the mission in my head a million times. What I could not imagine was the view I would see from my portal. Would I see the Earth, giant and imposing – or delicate and fragile? Would the planet be blue, like a sapphire, or brown like a pile of unwashed potatoes? With a roar of the engines, I was thrust upwards, the answers to my questions nearer!