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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."
Glad to see NASA focusing on the important stuff when it comes to space.
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Hey, now. That's one of the great artifacts of geekdom, and they're risking it on a shuttle launch? I seem to recall NASA's shuttles being a little... what's the word... explody, at times. Losing another crew would be bad enough, but Luke's saber? C'mon!
What would be really cool is if some aliens found it and made operational and then shipped it to me using GalEx (GalaxyExpress). Then I could go up to my boss, rattle my light saber by saying "Look. I am your fodder." Khoo khaa.
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.
Yes. It will be ejected into space, while miles below on the ground, Mark Hamill will reach spaceward, grimacing slightly as if straining on the toilet. The lightsaber will fly towards his outstretched hand through the power of The Force.
This is also how he retrieves his TV remote without getting up.
Soylent Green is peoplicious!
from the toilet?
Guys, don't worry, I'm sure it's not the real lightsaber. The real one was lost years ago. This is a digitally remastered (better) lightsaber with added features and toys! Very soon you will be able to buy your own original (digitally remastered and better) lightsaber at your local convenience store and you too can shoot it off into space. And it really is a good buy, George Lucas has assured us the money will go to deleting the entire Obi-Wan Darth Vader duel of A New Hope and adding a new scene (digitally remastered and better, of course) with Ewan McGregor. It's going to be great!
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.
After all, I am strangely colored.
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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After Vader cut off Luke's hand, I thought the saber would be tumbling somewhere in the Bespin system.
The irony of that moment is that Luke's father "wanted him to have it", except Luke's father cut off his hand to disarm him of it. And apparently Obi-Wan's interpretation of "he wanted you to have it", is "I took it from him after I left the bastard for dead." Though, I imagine his phrasing seems a little more sentimental.
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