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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."

6 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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    Using openSUSE instead of Windows since 9th of October, 2007 and liking it.
    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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      Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
    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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      How we know is more important than what we know.
  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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    After all, I am strangely colored.
  3. 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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  4. 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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    -a.e.mossberg