Celebrations in honor of the the first person to traveled to space — cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, who launched in the Vostok 1 for one 108-minute orbit around the Earth on April 12, 1961 — are an annual tradition. And they’re awesome. Especially so this year, when Yuri’s Night participants will mark the golden anniversary of Gagarin’s circle around the world.

The highlight of this year’s Yuri’s Night offerings is likely at Artisphere, where a moonbounce, some burlesque, a lunar dance party, an intergalactic variety show (awesomely described at “Star-Trek-meets-The-Love-Boat”), music, drinks, and more space geeky goodness will be found on Saturday. The party begins at 8 p.m., lasts until 1:30 a.m. and costs $20 advance or $25 at the door.

There are also some out of this world options at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and Science Club for those looking to share their excitement about next Tuesday’s premiere of video footage from Yuri’s orbit.

Update: Yes, apologies, the Goddard event isn’t happening this year. But folks from NASA’s SDO program (that’s the Solar Dynamics Observatory, where we’ve been getting tons of amazing images of the sun over the last year and is operated out of Goddard) will be helping out at the Science Club event. ThinkGeek will also be there giving out prizes for trivia smarts, they’ll be a LEGO building contest, drink specials, no cover, and a few “surprise guests.” I don’t think they mean me, but indeed, this is where your favorite DCist space editor will be celebrating Yuri’s Night this year, so come on down and toast to 50 years of spaceflight with me and a club full of spacenerds on Tuesday.

Elisabeth Grant and Aaron Morrissey contributed to this post.