From Fox News:

The socialite turned reality star is afraid that when she takes her journey to the final frontier, she might not return for 10,000 years.

“I’m very scared about it,” Hilton said. “What if I don’t come back? With the whole light years thing, what if I come back 10,000 years later, and everyone I know is dead? I’ll be like, ‘Great. Now I have to start all over.’

It’s hard to imagine that even someone as goofy and isolated from reality as Paris could come up with something like this. This is not someone taking a spaceflight because it’s in the name of science, fulfillment of a lifelong dream, or anything like that. It’s someone doing it because everyone else is, and she’s got the cash to say “I’m as cool as they are, even though I’m a poser.”

I can only dream of what it must be like to be born into so much money I never have to think for myself.

Yet again, the Boston Globe has an amazing photo set, this time of the Sun.

As usual, the Boston Globe has a beautiful photo essay, this one on the Baikonur Cosmodrome. This facility has been in operation since 1955, longer than any other space facility on Earth.

Notice the Buran space shuttle mock-up in the lower right of the picture above. Saddening.

Both shuttles (Atlantis on Launch Pad A in the foreground, Endeavor on Launch Pad B in the background) are on the pads for the Hubble servicing mission slated for October 10, 2008. When the ISS is not available for rescue purposes, as it might not be for this mission, a second shuttle is made ready for a quick launch. Tom’s Astronomy Blog has some additional detail.

The last time such an image could be seen was July 2001, for the STS-104 and STS-105 missions. Unfortunately, we’re not like to see it a 3rd time, as the shuttle fleet is being retired in 2010.

[NASA, Tom's Astronomy Blog]

A gallery of excellent photographs from Boston.com