Star Wars fans everywhere are all aflutter because the lightsaber belonging to Luke Sykwalker (the character portrayed brilliantly by Mark Hamill who, incidentally, went on to a successful career in film, stage, and voice work as the DIGG audience will tell you…) will be aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery when it launches on October 23, 2007:

The Jedi lightsaber has been carefully stowed aboard Discovery and will fly into space with the seven STS-120 astronauts to the International Space Station before returning to Earth 14 days later to mark [Star Wars'] 30th anniversary.

Wow. That’s really exciting news. I guess.

I mean, it’s not like they’ve actually invented a light saber. Or retrofitted the Space Shuttle with dilithium crystals. It’s just a tiny mixture of science fiction and reality.

Still, I guess folks were all excited about Scotty’s ashes being dumped in space so I’m sure the trend will continue. Personally, I’m looking forward to these headlines from future issues of Starlog:

* Marie Curie’s Corpse Fitted With 7 of 9’s Undies

* Optimus Prime Gets His Oil Changed by NASA

* Stephen Hawking Uses Michael York’s Styling Gel From Logan’s Run

* John Glenn Buys Rare Pornographic Star Wars Coloring Book!

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