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NASA To Send Luke's Lightsaber Into Space

Posted by kdawson on from the may-the-force-ahh-never-mind dept.

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."

15 of 290 comments (clear)

  1. Glad to see... by speaker+of+the+truth · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Glad to see NASA focusing on the important stuff when it comes to space.

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    1. Re:Glad to see... by Jugalator · · Score: 4, Insightful

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

      You could look at it in another way too -- without publicity for the masses (and not just space geeks), theye will lose interest in it. This seems like a very effort free way of raising publicity, and quite different on truly having their wrong focus by launching satellites for fun.

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    2. Re:Glad to see... by QuantumG · · Score: 5, Insightful

      So what you're saying is that this is really cheap advertising.

      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.

      Maybe put together some CG of the shuttle doing what it does when the astronauts press the buttons on the flight deck. Show us that when they're going through the procedures.. instead of the same shot of the earth from the ISS for 40 minutes.

      Ya know, actually engage the people on the ground in the process.

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  2. NASA must have too much money by Alain+Williams · · Score: 2, Insightful

    At a cost of about $9,000 per kilogramme to get something into orbit with the shuttle, is this really the best use of tax payers' money ?

    1. Re:NASA must have too much money by SamP2 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      No, but it means that something else (of potential scientific or utilitarian use) will be left behind.

      Saying a lightsaber doesn't add an extra cost to a shuttle is like saying you should ride the bus free because the bus is driving anyways, and 1 more person won't change the cost of paying for the gas or the driver's salary. But that either means someone else won't be able to get on, or the bus generates less revenue which will simply rollover to either less bus service in the future or higher ticket costs for the rest, to cover for that loss.

      There's a REASON there's such a huge pricetag on lifting anything in orbit, and you can't say "well the shuttle's gonna fly anyways so I might as well throw this trinket in", especially when there are a ton of legitimate things waiting YEARS for a chance of being lifted into space.

    2. Re:NASA must have too much money by poopdeville · · Score: 5, Insightful

      There's a REASON there's such a huge pricetag on lifting anything in orbit, and you can't say "well the shuttle's gonna fly anyways so I might as well throw this trinket in", especially when there are a ton of legitimate things waiting YEARS for a chance of being lifted into space.

      Too bad they weigh enough that they don't fit in this flight's spare capacity, like the light saber does. There's a limit to how much each flight can carry. They fit as much scientific stuff as they can on each one. But there's often spare capacity.

      You're just wrong.

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    3. Re:NASA must have too much money by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Your understanding of economics is only valid when the bus is at a loss to begin with, the moment the bus breaks even or is profitable its an invalid comparison.

      As for the value of sending Luke Lightsabre into orbit? 9 000 dollars/kg, the value of selling Luke Lightsabre (post-space travel) on eBay? Significantly more I'm betting.

      Why would NASA possibly do it? Because they're probably sick of being given bullshit objectives and being underfunded - they're planning to raise some money on the side so they can fund actual research instead of whatever hype-word is currently on the present administrations tongue - remember that they're geeks too and have geeky dreams of seeing progress occur. (or maybe this last part is just my wet dream of a space agency that produces results).

  3. Re:Do they let wookies on airplanes? by QuantumG · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Uh huh. Maybe if more people ripped the arms off TSA agents we'd have more sensible air travel security.

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    How we know is more important than what we know.
  4. The Next Generation by Nymz · · Score: 2, Insightful

    If firing a Star Wars movie prop into space, is what it takes, to get the next generations attention and acceptance of continued funding of NASA programs, then perhaps we should rethink the whole thing. Isn't teaching the truth about outer-space enough? because I don't think another Lance Bass is the way to save NASA.

    1. Re:The Next Generation by kamapuaa · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Lance Bass didn't actually go into space, but as a rich person who wanted to spend his own money to make it into space, that sort of thing is exactly what the space program needs. Private enterprise realizing financial opportunities in space flight would be about the best possible thing that could happen to NASA, whether it's exotic vacations, or increased satellites, or zero-G research, or mining some exotic kind of space narcotic, or whatever the fuck people might want from outer space and be willing to spend money for. NASA right now exists somewhere between being a long term investment and as a propaganda arm of the US government, its future is always going to be in doubt while that's true.

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  5. glass of water by 7bit · · Score: 2, Insightful

    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]
    WoWz! So why aren't we training horse-jockeys to be astronauts?

    And if each astronaught has a glass of water before getting onto the shuttle? That would be pretty expensive too!

    I suspect the weight of the light saber safely falls within the margin of error they build into their fuel calculations and as such won't really cost them any more than they are already going to spend/use in fuel anyway. Well worth it in my opinion. There isn't any reason why we can't make all our endeavors a little more fun and inspiring, it's what humans are all about.
  6. Your tax dollars at work by DrXym · · Score: 1, Insightful

    What an utterly pointless and futile act. They should have auctioned the light sabre off and donated the proceeds to something that promotes or furthers science in some way.

  7. Re:Careful... by MadnessASAP · · Score: 1, Insightful

    On the contrary, he raises a very good point. NASA is sending up a priceless (at lest to many of people) artifact in a vehicle that has a history of well blowing up. Now granted this isn't the first time that they've done such things and it is still more then likely that it will survive it's just kind of funny to think that the lightsaber might be lost forever just because the damn shuttle blew up. (again)

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  8. Re:Why? by edmazur · · Score: 2, Insightful
    FTA:

    The laser-like Jedi weapon is being flown to the orbiting outpost and back in honor of the 30th anniversary of director George Lucas' franchise.
  9. Mark Hamill? by inicom · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Am I the only one sad that Mark Hamill isn't part of the ceremony? I'm sure it couldn't be a question of cost. Instead, the only "dignataries" at the send off and return are costumes. If Luke's saber is being used for publicity, the hand that wielded it should be as well.

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