Club Jade

IN THE NEWS

• Discovery declared safe for re-entry.

• George Lucas received the Irving M. Levin award earlier this week. We’ve known about the award for some time, but hardcore Lucas-watchers will appreciate this report from the event.
• Fractal Matter posts the second part of their Rick McCallum interview.
• Video: Buckingham Palace greets Saudi king with the Imperial March. Snicker.

FANDOM

• TK-7602′s step-by-step on the making of the Jabba puppet. Hey, you never know when you’re going to need a crime lord.

• Brad Pitt and Maddox Jolie-Pitt had a Star Wars Halloween.
• Mad offices home to Star Wars pinball machine.

PEOPLE

• Carrie Fisher’s 30 Rock appearance is now online.

• Hayden Christensen signs on to Beast of Bataan, while Natalie Portman now has a two-year production deal.
• The Void interviews Dave Prowse.

GEAR

• Merchandise: Star Wars ‘costume’ t-shirts at Urban Outfitters Folks, this really will not make you cool. No, it won’t.

• This wee felt Leia pin (among others) might, though.

ONE FOR THE ROAD

• Top ten other things that Han shot that didn’t shoot at him first. Warning: Bitter fanboy. But a mildly amusing bitter fanboy!

The Discovery crew wakes up to Star Wars. StarWars.com has audio and transcript.

Starwars.com wants your questions for the astronauts on board Discovery.

The Discovery launched right on time this morning. The shuttle is carrying the Return of the Jedi lightsaber, and George Lucas himself was in attendance at the launch. For the NASA geeks, the AP has plenty of details.

In a interesting sidebar, this mission also marks the first time that there are two women commanding spacecraft at the same time.

The saber is loaded and ready for the trip to space; Fans can leave messages for the space shuttle astronauts.

Collect Space has pictures of the lightsaber’s arrival in Houston.

The Wookiee and several of his costumed friends presented NASA officials with the Skywalker lightsaber today at Oakland International Airport. The lightsaber will be met in Houston by the R2-D2, the 501st and a police escort who will accompany it to NASA

Luke Skywalker’s lightsaber heading to space. For real!

UPDATE: Expect plenty of coverage over at the TOSblog tomorrow!

A NASA study says that ‘Earth-like conditions’ on Mars could be achieved through the use of space mirrors. The concept makes me nervous for some reason. Oh, here it is:

Woida points out another potential problem. If not carefully designed, the mirrors could focus harmful high-frequency radiation like gamma rays onto the surface.

Mmm, cosmic rays.

Here’s some of what’s been going on in the outside world.

Revenge of the Sith won two DVD awards. Also on the official site, November 2006 Comics.

Speaking of comics, don’t bother looking for Legacy #3 in stores. It was supposed to come out today (the schedule even said so until this morning) but it’s… not. Word on the boards is that last week’s books didn’t ship either. (I don’t know: I only buy Legacy.) Dark Horse isn’t the only one: Something is rotten in the comics industry.

“May the force be with you” tops online quote poll. And I don’t think TFN linked the poll, which means it might actually have won fair and square. Cool.

Some new Star Wars miniatures debuted at GenCon. The set includes a “Mystral” Shadow Guard, but unless they came with booze and/or naked men, I don’t think any of us noticed. Also, it seems they’re restarting the RPG.

Colleen Doran witnesses The Fan From Hell. I think we’ve found one that beats the Woodtick, folks.

Those damn Harry Potter plagiarists made it all the way up the fannish blog chain to John Scalzi. Twice.

Other stuff I would have blogged:
- NASA has misplaced the original moon landing tapes. Our tax dollars at work!
- Daniel Radcliffe is down with Harry Potter dying.
- Crazy mofo has “temporary” Wolverine piercing. My hand hurts just looking at it.
- Hayden Christensen making some movie.
- Things writers have no control over. (Add to the list: Killing Chewbacca.)
- The Top 8 Shows For SF Myth Busters.
- 11 Things in Fantasy/That I Don’t Promise Not to Use (or Keep Using) in My Writing and 6 More Things I Could do Without in Fantastic Literature & I don’t plan to use except to make fun of.