Editing Newsletter/Fall 2007 (section)

== Latest Shuttle Discovery Launch From NASA ==
[[Image:Jim_Reilly_Lightsaber.jpg|175px|thumb|right|Astronaut Jim Reilly accepting the lightsaber from R2D2]] 
by [[herbalsheila]]
[[Image:Lightsaber.jpg|160px|thumb|left|Skywalker's Lightsaber, packaged for its trip into space]]
Shuttle Discovery has an interesting item in its payload. 

Weeks before, astronaut Jim Reilly had accepted the Star Wars lightsaber for the STS-120 Discovery mission that was launched October 23, 2007. 

The Star Wars prop was carried by Mark Hamill who played Luke Skywalker in the Star Wars films. The lightsaber was given a celebratory send off with actors dressed as characters from the Star Wars movies, such as Chewbacca and X-Wing fighters that ceremoniously escorted the item to an airport in California for its flight to NASA in Houston. The lightsaber was then packed into a shuttle locker and taken to NASA’s Space Center in Florida for loading aboard Discovery. 

Seasoned astronaut Jim Reilly, who has flown three missions and successfully accomplished eight EVA spacewalks, said there is a symbolic tie between the work in space done by NASA and the lightsaber. 

"There's a kind of a fine line between science fiction and reality as far as what we do and it's only just time, really, because a lot [[Image:Gene_Roddenberry.jpg|125px|thumb|left|Gene Roddenberry, Star Trek's creator]]of what we're doing right now was science fiction when I was growing up. I think it's a neat link because it combines two space themes all at one time,” said the astronaut. 
[[Image:Scotty.jpg|200px|thumb|right|James Doohan as Scotty]]             
The lightsaber will spend all of its time of fourteen days in space, in its locker for the entire trip on the STS-120 Discovery mission. It is to be returned to LucasFilm upon Discovery's return. It, like other items taken into space, will become a tangible beacon to the adventure of this final frontier for those of us who have not been able to make the trip.

The last Star Trek related space flights occurred in May 2007 when James Doohan’s ashes were flown into space following the event of Gene Roddenberry’s cremated remains shot into space in 1992.

Sources:

StarTrek.com

Nasa.gov

Want to see what else has been taken into space by NASA's shuttle crews? Please see Nasa.gov[[http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/behindscenes/Whatsgoingup.html]] for more information.