As proof that this blog is about things other than Larry Craig, let me point to a few interesting things that I've collected over the past few days:

• Anil Dash, "occasional lolcat critic and vice president of Six Apart", in the WSJ.  Explaining lolcats.  Heh.
• MSNBC's "Ads of the Weird" gets upset that the TIAA-CREF ad campaign uses Bob Mould's music.  The best part, though, is the second comment on the post.  Schooled.  Next issue?  (via torrez.)
• wow, this is a dumb stunt, particularly when it's not too hard to think of some better uses of taxpayer dollars.
• the Center for Land Use Interpretation limns the Blue Ridge Parkway and its environs.

Comments

[Tom]

The lightsaber going in to space I don't find particularly dumb. I mean, the Star Trek cast being at the christening of the first space shuttle, named appropriately The Enterprise, probably helped inspire some future engineers and astronauts. Star Wars doesn't have the same Star Trek inspirational message, but still, for kids like me who grew up watching real space drama (the Apollo missions) and fake (Star Trek Classic), I'd be willing to give NASA a pass on this one.

[bluespf42]

"better uses of taxpayer dollars" ?? I can't imagine that this "dumb stunt" is costing many taxpayer dollars--in fact, it seems to me like pretty cost-effective publicity. I'm actually wondering if there's been an increase of revenue to Space Center Houston, from Star Wars tourists? I commend NASA for thinking broadly and trying to appeal to a wider range of space geeks. And I think a bit of fun publicity is never a bad idea for this particular government agency.

[Vidiot]

Ach, I dunno -- having the Star Trek cast at the unveiling of the Enterprise was harmless and a bit goofy. (The whole big campaign to name OV-101 after a TV show just makes me shake my head.)

And Blue, we talked about this F2F, as you know, and you raise a good point about publicity and wondering if the tab for this was picked up by the taxpayer. Yeah, I do condede that NASA probably does need a bit of good press, but ultimately I think that NASA does enough legitimately, genuinely cool things that this just seems...superfluous somehow.

And for some reason, the succession of details in that press release just struck me as more and more ridiculous. Chewbacca and Boba Fett will hand it over and "help push the plane back"? And Stormtroopers and R2-D2 will escort it to "a waiting line of Hummers"? With a police escort? And they're pushing aside the moon rocks to put it in the vault? It just strikes me as so unnecessary.

[Keith Irwin]

From what I can find, it appears that the cost of getting 1kg into orbit on the Space Shuttle vary between about $60,000 and $20,000 depending on how large the payload is. Assuming that the light saber weighs less than 1kg, then obviously that gives us a pretty good estimation of the raw cost, and then we'd have to estimate the ceremonial costs on top of that.

It doesn't really seem like it's too expensive as publicity stunts go, but I think that real question is whether or not it's going to be an effective advertising tool. Is it going to make NASA more appealing or make them seem frivolous?

Keith