When the smoke cleared and the music died down, Candy Torres could no longer contain herself. Looking at the shiny, restored Star Trek Galileo shuttlecraft sitting at the Space Center Houston in all its TV glory, she broke down.
"All of a sudden I was just crying. … I couldn't believe it," Torres said, donning a brown tourist engineer hat and a NASA mission operations shirt. "It meant something."
Trekkies of all stripes arrived in Houston Wednesday for the unveiling of the shuttlecraft that crash-landed on a hostile planet in the 1967 "Star Trek" episode called "The Galileo Seven." Adam Schneider paid $61,000 for the battered shuttlecraft in an auction and spent about a year restoring the fiberglass ship and making it look nearly as it did on that episode. "Unbelievably proud," he said.
Richard Allen, 63, the space center's CEO and president, hopes that just as the Star Trek movies and others like it inspired Torres to pursue a career in science and engineering, that today's generation will be similarly inspired when they see the Galileo. "We're all about exciting and educating … and I'm convinced that space is one of the best, if not the best, way of creating inquiry in young minds."
Topshop slapped for Rihanna image use
Pop singer Rihanna has won a court case in Britain against retailer Topshop, which was selling T-shirts bearing her image without permission. High Court Justice Colin Birss ruled in favor of the singer on Wednesday, saying buyers were likely deceived by believing Rihanna had authorized its sale. Rihanna has a clothing line in her name at a rival store.
Idol dad: Kris Allen is a dad. The season eight American Idol winner, 28, welcomed a baby boy with his wife, Katy O'Connell, on Tuesday, Us Weekly reported. "Little Oliver Neil Allen is here!" Allen's rep said. "Mom and baby are doing great." This is the first child for the singer and his wife. Together since high school, they married in 2008.
Sorry, more rehab: Lindsay Lohan may have completed her court-mandated 90-day stint in rehab, but she's still not off the hook. On Wednesday, one day after she left Cliffside Malibu Rehab Center, Judge James R. Dabney ruled that she needs to complete an additional 15 months of psychological therapy, TMZ reports.
'Idol' Judge is dad: Simon Cowell, judge on "American Idol," "The X Factor" and "Britain's Got Talent," is reportedly expecting his first child. Sources told Us Weekly that New York socialite Lauren Silverman, estranged wife of Cowell's friend Andrew Silverman, is about 10 weeks along.
