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.

FMI: www.lucasfilm.com, www.southwest.com, www.nasa.gov