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Luke Skywalker's lightsaber to make the trek into orbit |
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Written by Derek Kessler on
Thursday, 30 August 2007
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 While we are a site dedicated to the future of Star Trek, this one was just too good to pass up. The original prop lightsaber used by Mark Hamil as the Jedi hero Luke Skywalker in the original Star Wars trilogy from 1977 will be flown to the International Space Station in October. When the Space Shutle Discovery launches (currently scheduled for October 23rd), the lightsaber will ride along into orbit, visit the ISS - where it will not be used during construction of the station - and return to Earth a few days later.
Before the prop is sent up on Discovery, it will fly to the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, with a send-off ceremony at the Oakland International Airport where Chewbacca and Boba and Jango Fett will hand off the lightsaber to NASA officials. Once at the JSC, it will be greeted by a troop of Stormtroopers and the lovable droid R2D2. The lightsaber will then be placed on display in a vault with real space artifacts such as moon rocks. NASA plans to leave the lightsaber on display through Labor Day, after which it will be prepared for launch aboard Discovery from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida.
STS-120 is currently targeted for launch on October 23, and will be led by commander Palm Melroy and pilot George Zamka. The rest of the seven-person crew of Discovery includes mission specialists Scott Parazynski, Doug Wheelock, and Stephanie Wilson, European Space Agency astronaut Paolo Nespoli, and as well as space station Expedition 16 flight engineer Dan Tani. Apart from the lightsaber, their primary cargo is the station's second Italian-built U.S. multi-port node named Harmony.
Discuss: TrekUnited Forum
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"It's best not to dwell on such minutiae."
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