Petition to build the Death Star

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Petition to build the Death Star

Post by Boeing 757 »

http://rt.com/usa/news/us-petition-death-star-418/
Death Stars and Stripes: Americans sign petition to build killer ‘Star Wars’ space station

Marijuana, secession and now ‘Star Wars’: Thousands of Americans have signed yet another bizarre online White House petition, this one to “secure funding and resources” to build the ‘Death Star’ space station from the popular sci-fi film.

­“By focusing our defense resources into a space-superiority platform and weapon system such as a Death Star, the government can spur job creation in the fields of construction, engineering, space exploration, and more, and strengthen our national defense,” the petition on the White House website reads.

The document, created on November 14 by a resident of Colorado, has already collected over 5,000 signatures. The petition needs around 20,000 more by December 14 for it to be formally reviewed by the White House staff.

The Death Star is the planet-destroying space station built by the Galactic Empire in the wildly popular sci-fi movie saga ‘Star Wars,’ directed by George Lucas. The franchise is adored by millions of fans around the world.

Earlier this year, students at Lehigh University in the US calculated the hypothetical cost of building a Death Star at $8.52 quadrillion – roughly 13,000 times the world’s GDP.

The White House’s petition platform, which allows anyone to offer suggestions to the government, is relatively new and was created to provide citizens with “new way to create or join the petition encouraging government to take action on the range of issues.”

The move has resulted in a cornucopia of bizarre petitions: Adopting the Gray Wolf to join the Bald Eagle as the national mascot; legalizing the use of magic mushrooms and mescaline; even to “shut down White House petitions, since they never get a sincere response… and are ultimately worthless.”

The most popular petition on the website so far calls for the peaceful secession of Texas, which has collected over 110,000 signatures.
Ahm :wtf: ...any thoughts? At least it lists a few interesting facts....
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Re: Petition to build the Death Star

Post by Surlethe »

We'd better be careful -- our treasury markets can't absorb deficits of that magnitude!
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Re: Petition to build the Death Star

Post by StarSword »

Jesus. Some people will sign anything.

What will the folks signing the Texas one (or any of the other similar petitions, for that matter) say when they figure out that any law that could pass to get them out of the U.S. would be immediately struck down by the courts for violating the (13th?) amendment? (Also, it didn't go so well the last time Texas tried to be an independent country...)
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Re: Petition to build the Death Star

Post by EnterpriseSovereign »

Sounds like a pipe dream some kid thought of, rather than a serious proposal. How the fuck can anyone calculate the cost of building something when the ability to generate the energy output orders of magnitude greater than that of a main sequence star is what's needed to power the thing? :lol:
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Re: Petition to build the Death Star

Post by Mr Bean »

EnterpriseSovereign wrote:Sounds like a pipe dream some kid thought of, rather than a serious proposal. How the fuck can anyone calculate the cost of building something when the ability to generate the energy output orders of magnitude greater than that of a main sequence star is what's needed to power the thing? :lol:
You can make basic assumptions like how much steel it would take if the entire sphere was made from steel (Which it won't be) and you can presume operating budgets and a host of other things and get a low ball number. If we wanted to build the Death Star we could build at least the shell of it with the entire worlds output over seven hundred years. It's just math.

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Re: Petition to build the Death Star

Post by Cykeisme »

Hrm, would we need materials with greater structural strength than steel to get it to accelerate at any decent number of Gs without buckling?

Also, like Mr Bean said.. clean power generation even several orders of magnitude below what the Death Star has would have human civilization pretty much set :D
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Re: Petition to build the Death Star

Post by aussiemuscle308 »

i'd only support it if we needed a massive weapon to destroy our enemies' planets :roll:
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Re: Petition to build the Death Star

Post by Simonoz »

Only problem is - you shoot yourself when you shoot at china
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Re: Petition to build the Death Star

Post by Cykeisme »

Simonoz wrote:Only problem is - you shoot yourself when you shoot at china
Pffft, the U.S. has always understood and accepted the concept of collateral damage.
"..history has shown the best defense against heavy cavalry are pikemen, so aircraft should mount lances on their noses and fly in tight squares to fend off bombers". - RedImperator

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Re: Petition to build the Death Star

Post by jwl »

It's not a petition to build an actual death star, it's to reinstate the death star program, which is actually an orbital laser designed to shoot down nukes, to my memory. Although they still probabably have no idea about the military alive an economics of such a project. Building an actual death star would be way more expensive than you are implying with that article because you would likely need a Dyson sphere to power it.
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Re: Petition to build the Death Star

Post by Batman »

Cykeisme wrote:
Simonoz wrote:Only problem is - you shoot yourself when you shoot at china
Pffft, the U.S. has always understood and accepted the concept of collateral damage.
There's collateral damage, and there's 'yeah, okay, so everybody on my side died, but so did everybody on theirs so NYAH!' Winning doesn't just mean the other side died. You have to be alive to gloat about it.
And since when have the US had a Death Star program? They had a Star Wars program. And seriously. You think we can't afford to build a Dyson Sphere (which, incidentally, would collect about enough energy to allow the Death Star to fire every other leap year) when the technology to do so to begin with is like 5 million years out of our reach.
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Re: Petition to build the Death Star

Post by jwl »

Batman wrote:And since when have the US had a Death Star program? They had a Star Wars program.
My bad. They can't be serious about building a real death star, though, can they?
And seriously. You think we can't afford to build a Dyson Sphere when the technology to do so to begin with is like 5 million years out of our reach.
That too, I was just addressing the money argument. Come to that, we don't have the technology to get the death star up there, neither am I sure if we have a material strong enough to support the gravitational forces involved in the death star, either.
Which, incidentally, would collect about enough energy to allow the Death Star to fire every other leap year.
Maybe so with the actual death star, but you could fire it more often with a generic planetbusting weapon, which, if they are petitioning for an actual death star, is what they are probably aiming for anyway.
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Re: Petition to build the Death Star

Post by jwl »

jwl wrote:Neither am I sure if we have a material strong enough to support the gravitational forces involved in the death star, either.
Actually, scratch that. Given the numbers in that article, I've done the equations and found that steel is probably strong enough.
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Re: Petition to build the Death Star

Post by Scottish Ninja »

I think the appropriate response would be to say, "Great idea! However, given the costs involved, we've decided the program will be paid for entirely through public subscription." And then set up a Kickstarter for $852,000,000,000,000,000.
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Re: Petition to build the Death Star

Post by Terralthra »

jwl wrote:It's not a petition to build an actual death star, it's to reinstate the death star program, which is actually an orbital laser designed to shoot down nukes, to my memory. Although they still probabably have no idea about the military alive an economics of such a project. Building an actual death star would be way more expensive than you are implying with that article because you would likely need a Dyson sphere to power it.
You're wrong.

It's a petition to build an actual Death Star.
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Re: Petition to build the Death Star

Post by Ahriman238 »

So hopefully a joke, or the work of a third-grader. Or someone operating with a third-grader's understanding of science, government and economics.

I'd probably put my signature on it, just to move it closer to the point where the White House has to make a formal response.
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Re: Petition to build the Death Star

Post by madd0ct0r »

where have we gone that people aren't sure this is a joke? Did average intelligence suddenly undergo radioactive decay or something?
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Re: Petition to build the Death Star

Post by Borgholio »

madd0ct0r wrote:where have we gone that people aren't sure this is a joke? Did average intelligence suddenly undergo radioactive decay or something?
*points to the masses of people who voted for Romney*
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Re: Petition to build the Death Star

Post by Darth Mencken »

First response: Er . . . why?

More meditated response: How exactly would the ability to destroy a planet (Er, which one do they have in mind?) "strengthen [the US's] national defense"? The enemies who are most bedeviling us right now are more susceptible to drone strikes and SEAL team raids, than to tanks, heavy artillery, and other more traditional "big" expressions of military might. The Death Star seems a BIG step in precisely the wrong direction here!

Also, as a Sith Lord I feel I must point-out, the Death Star (both of them) didn't actually do the Empire much good. Lord Vader himself was not too impressed by the first of these "technological terrors," and warned his fellow Imperials, "Don't be too proud . . ." Plus, this was largely the Rebels' doing, but nearly every piece of anti-Imperial propaganda these scum put out following the Alderaan incident, made at least passing reference to the Death Star. Truly, if the Empire was gonna get this kinda press (not that we expect the Rebels to have anything nice to say about us), we should at least get more mileage (i.e. More planets destroyed) out of each superweapon.

Even Emperor Palpatine - er, Darth Sidious - seemed to recognize, while the 2nd Death Star was still under construction, that it was good for little other than attracting a 20-something "boy" whom he wanted as a replacement for Vader (and that ploy - er - kinda backfired!).
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Re: Petition to build the Death Star

Post by madd0ct0r »

madd0ct0r wrote:where have we gone that people aren't sure this is a joke? Did average intelligence suddenly undergo radioactive decay or something?
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Re: Petition to build the Death Star

Post by Molyneux »

This petition system has been a joke from the start; a look at their responses to the petitions asking for an end to marijuana prohibition shows that clearly. It was never intended to really give the American people a direct line to the White House's attention.
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Re: Petition to build the Death Star

Post by LaCroix »

Did they answer the secession one, yet? Couldn't find it...
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Re: Petition to build the Death Star

Post by Irbis »

Batman wrote:
Cykeisme wrote:Pffft, the U.S. has always understood and accepted the concept of collateral damage.
There's collateral damage, and there's 'yeah, okay, so everybody on my side died, but so did everybody on theirs so NYAH!'
Congratulations, you just described the collateral damage that would result from war for 40 year period and yet people were perfectly accepting of the concept, hell, war almost started a few times.
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Re: Petition to build the Death Star

Post by jwl »

I've checked this out more thoroughly. Apparently it's a 4chan thing.
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Re: Petition to build the Death Star

Post by phongn »

The White House wrote:OFFICIAL WHITE HOUSE RESPONSE TO
Secure resources and funding, and begin construction of a Death Star by 2016.
This Isn't the Petition Response You're Looking For
By Paul Shawcross

The Administration shares your desire for job creation and a strong national defense, but a Death Star isn't on the horizon. Here are a few reasons:
  • The construction of the Death Star has been estimated to cost more than $850,000,000,000,000,000.
  • We're working hard to reduce the deficit, not expand it.
  • The Administration does not support blowing up planets.
  • Why would we spend countless taxpayer dollars on a Death Star with a fundamental flaw that can be exploited by a one-man starship?
However, look carefully (here's how) and you'll notice something already floating in the sky -- that's no Moon, it's a Space Station! Yes, we already have a giant, football field-sized International Space Station in orbit around the Earth that's helping us learn how humans can live and thrive in space for long durations. The Space Station has six astronauts -- American, Russian, and Canadian -- living in it right now, conducting research, learning how to live and work in space over long periods of time, routinely welcoming visiting spacecraft and repairing onboard garbage mashers, etc. We've also got two robot science labs -- one wielding a laser -- roving around Mars, looking at whether life ever existed on the Red Planet.

Keep in mind, space is no longer just government-only. Private American companies, through NASA's Commercial Crew and Cargo Program Office (C3PO), are ferrying cargo -- and soon, crew -- to space for NASA, and are pursuing human missions to the Moon this decade.

Even though the United States doesn't have anything that can do the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs, we've got two spacecraft leaving the Solar System and we're building a probe that will fly to the exterior layers of the Sun. We are discovering hundreds of new planets in other star systems and building a much more powerful successor to the Hubble Space Telescope that will see back to the early days of the universe.

We don't have a Death Star, but we do have floating robot assistants on the Space Station, a President who knows his way around a light saber and advanced (marshmallow) cannon, and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which is supporting research on building Luke's arm, floating droids, and quadruped walkers.

We are living in the future! Enjoy it. Or better yet, help build it by pursuing a career in a science, technology, engineering or math-related field. The President has held the first-ever White House science fairs and Astronomy Night on the South Lawn because he knows these domains are critical to our country's future, and to ensuring the United States continues leading the world in doing big things.

If you do pursue a career in a science, technology, engineering or math-related field, the Force will be with us! Remember, the Death Star's power to destroy a planet, or even a whole star system, is insignificant next to the power of the Force.

Paul Shawcross is Chief of the Science and Space Branch at the White House Office of Management and Budget
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