Wendi Deng deserves credit for containing husband Rupert Murdoch's worst impulses. Not only did her fearsome bodyguarding distract the world from hubby's hacking scandal, it's now clear that she preserved a friendship with Google that Murdoch tried to explode.

Google helped pay for this weekend's launch of a satellite which will take high-resolution imagery for its Google Earth service, and founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin were on hand to watch the rocket lift off at Vandenberg Air Force Base. Serious business, right? Not when you see our spy photos of the billionaires. Brin wore bright orange Crocs and Page wore a red windbreaker. More tellingly, Brin brought Anne Wojcicki, his pregnant wife, and Page brought his wife Lucy. Both women also dressed informally. Wojcicki carried a plastic water bottle — funny, I thought Larry and Sergey had gotten rid of those at the Googleplex. It all looked like a lark for the billionaire couples, rather than a visit to a high-security military installation — paid for by Google's shareholders and U.S. taxpayers. At least Larry and Sergey seem to have flown their on their own dime — the photos show a Gulfstream V, one of the models in the Googlers' fleet of party planes. Admit it, you all wish you were Larry and Sergey, Crocs and all.

The photos:

Lucy Page, the bioinformatics-expert wife of the Google cofounder, would seem to fit the Forbes template for billionaires' wives: "Looks are great — but brains are even better." Unlike husband Larry — shown here kissing his bride at their Necker Island wedding — the former Lucy Southworth actually completed her Ph.D. at Stanford. But a revelation from sister Carrie Southworth, an actress, may mar Lucy's Valley-brainy reputation.

Born on March 26, 1973, Google cofounder Larry Page turns 35 today. Maybe wife Lucy will get Larry some jewelry to match Sergey's. (Photo by dannysullivan)

Anne Wojcicki, the wife of Google cofounder Sergey Brin and CEO of the Google-funded biotech startup 23andMe, is a modern sort, keeping her name after marriage. Not so, apparently, for the former Lucy Southworth, who recently married Brin's cofounder, Larry Page. At the World Economic Forum in Davos, her nametag read "Lucy Page." One thing's for sure: This will make her more difficult to Google.