NASA To Send Luke's Lightsaber Into Space

Verunks writes "In honor of the 30th anniversary of Star Wars, NASA will launch Luke Skywalker's original Jedi lightsaber into space along with the crew of the space shuttle Discovery. The launch is slated for October."

Actually not Luke's original lightsaber

[Anonymous Coward]

The picture is of his lightsaber from Ep. 6 - "Return of the Jedi" which he built after losing his hand and his original lightsaber (inherited from Anakin) during his battle with Darth Vader in Ep. 5. //no thanks necessary - it's my job as a pedant and Star Wars geek.

Re:NASA must have too much money

[Ubitsa_teh_1337]

Actually, though this may come as a surprise, the space shuttle is not fueled by money, it's fueled by rocket fuel. The $9,000/kilo figure is just an average based on how much it costs to launch the shuttle and how heavy the shuttle is. Adding a .5kg lightsaber doesn't change how expensive the launch will be, at all.

Re:Glad to see...

[opec]

If you're sending up space shuttle Discovery, I doubt there's a lot of wasted costs on putting a lightsabre in there. :-p

The average cost per pound to send to Low Earth Orbit is $3632 - $4587. [1]

[1] Source: http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewnews.html?id=301 [spaceref.com]

We seem to be...

[Derek Loev]

Star Wars Fans: We seem to be made to suffer. It's our lot in life.

Re:Glad to see...

[fr4nk]

Personally, I think NASA could more easily improve their image by putting a few cameras on the shuttle.. and showing us what the astronauts are actually doing when they're going through the procedures to return to earth, say, instead of showing us shot after shot of the landing strip, 4 hours before the shuttle is even scheduled to enter the atmosphere.

You should have a look at NASA TV [nasa.gov] during Shuttle missions.

Serenity beat them to it

[mattcoz]

One of the crew members on a recent shuttle trip to the international space station brought the Firefly and Serenity DVDs up with them. Breaking Atmo [breakingatmo.com]

Re:Careful...

[Richard W.M. Jones]

An irreplaceable (though probably not priceless) drawing by an Auschwitz victim was lost aboard Columbia (reference [wikipedia.org]).

Rich.

Re:Glad to see...

[QuantumG]

Always start with wikipedia..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_Spac e_Shuttle_program [wikipedia.org]

The criticism of the shuttle program is extensive and uncontroversial. No-one in the industry, not even NASA, thinks the shuttle is anything but a huge balls up from beginning to end. The most flattering description of the shuttle program you can get from a space systems engineer is "it was a nice design before congress got to it."

Re:Glad to see...

[GeckoX]

Um, I was watching Columbia when it burned up, as was just about everyone else in school at the time in North America. Just saying...