Like the Olympic torch, the movie prop will make a high-security ceremonial journey from LucasFilm to Houston, Texas. In the end, Luke Skywalker’s light saber will be in orbit, aboard the space shuttle Discovery.
From Aero-news:
Movie Prop Will Fly Aboard Discovery
To commemorate the 30th
anniversary of the ‘Star Wars’ movie franchise, the series
production company, Lucasfilm and the National Aeronautics and
Space Administration decided to put something from the movie in
space.
Luke Skywalker’s lightsaber — the prop, anyway — will join
astronauts in October on the space shuttle Discovery, said the
production company along with NASA and Southwest Airlines.
The lightsaber will leave the Lucasfilm headquarters in northern
California August 28 where Chewbacca — well, an actor in a Wookie
suit — will personally hand it over to NASA Space Center Houston
representatives at Oakland International Airport during a
ceremony.
It will then be flown to Houston, where Imperial stormtroopers
(OK, more actors) will escort it from gate 47 in William P. Hobby
Airport to NASA’s Johnson Space Center in a caravan of Hummer
SUVs — complete with a police escort — along with R2-D2 and other
characters from the film.
The lightsaber is to be secured in a vault once used to house
moon samples until the shuttle launch.
