No Death Star

[31899]

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2013 ... ponse.html

I'm more interested in warp engines anyways.

[Laurie]

This country has enough debt and wasteful spending without Obama spending money on a Death Star.

[31899]

I don't know how it works in the United States, but usually it is not one person who has unanimous control over the budget. Next, this was a petition, and sort of a joke. You can choose to blame one person for all your nation's debt problems, but your debt problems go much further back than your current president from my understanding. [This is meant as calm observation, not harsh criticism, please read as such].

[Jonathan]

And with all that^ in mind, the administration's "response" was kinda funny too.

[bookworm]

I was just about to post about this too.

[The Top Crusader]

Very disappointing, Romney would've given us our Death Star.

PROOF the Obama stimulus is a sham, imo.

[bookworm]

Romney would've given us our Death Star.

Gingrich would have given us a Death Star and a moonbase.

[Knight Fisher]

Well really, the Death Star was a Peace Moon for Naboo.

[Shennifer]

that's no moon; it's a space station.

[Knight Fisher]

Well yes. That's what everyone thought though because Obi Wan killed Maul before he could expose the horrible schemes of Palpatine and Senator Bubble.

[gunblader3]

Death Star? We haven't gotten our hoover cars yet!

[bookworm]

The government won’t build it, so the project turns to Kickstarter.

The U.S. government refuses to build a Death Star, so the internet is taking it to Kickstarter.

Back in January, the U.S. government said "thanks but no thanks" to a petition calling upon it to begin construction of a Death Star. Exorbitant cost notwithstanding, the Obama Administration apparently has a policy of not blowing up other planets. But while that may have been the end of the matter a few years ago, this is the era of empowered consumers, and that means it's time to do some crowdfunding!

The Open Souce Death Star Kickstarter has a goal of £20,000,000 - that's a little over $31 million - and before you ask, no, that's not actually the construction budget. The initial goal will fund the development of more detailed construction plans (a preliminary design is up on the Kickstarter page) and the cost of some chicken wire to cover the exhaust port; the first (and only) stretch goal of £543,000,000,000,000,00 ($850,000,000,000,000,000) will cover the full expense of building the thing. To keep costs as low as possible, the entire project will make use of open source hardware and software.

The only real risk to the Kickstarter, according to its creator, is the power of the Force, while the primary challenge is to ensure everyone knows that this is actually a joke. To get that point across, the funding goal has been set high enough to make success "almost impossible." Almost.

As amusing as this Kickstarter is, what makes it really interesting is that people seem determined to actually make it happen. Several comments point out that it's easy to donate the maximum of £5000 because the money isn't taken unless and until the Kickstarter is successful, and at that rate only 4000 backers are needed to push it over the top. At last check the Open Source Death Star Kickstarter had attracted a little shy of £200,000 in three days and had 52 days left on the clock.

Can it happen? Will it happen? What happens if it does? Failure is likely but the dream of success is tantalizing - and don't forget that a man once asked, "What good are snub fighters going to be against that?" We all know how that worked out.

[Musical Shutterbug]

If I had the money, I would totally donate to this lovely cause

[TigerintheShadows]

Um, they'd better not be giving us a Death Star before they build the Enterprise. They also need to stop holding my Hogwarts letter in the mail. I'm almost of age and I've had no proper wizard training!

[bookworm]

Um, they'd better not be giving us a Death Star before they build the Enterprise.

Fear not, that project is also underway.

[TigerintheShadows]

Excellent. All we need now is an American branch of Hogwarts. I'm sure Harry and Kingsley Shacklebolt will get right on that soon, seeing as how they're about finished making major changes to the entire system of the Wizarding world in Britain.

[Cbriggs45]

i'd prefer a death star over hogwarts... clearly for the jump into black magic..

i think if we had a death star we could scale back the defense budget. troops on the ground in other countries would be moot.

think about it.. we could have a death star target a country and wipe it out.. so this is a sad day for American foreign policy...

[bookworm]

we could have a death star target a country and wipe it out

Could we? I didn’t think it could be scaled down from planetary annihilation.

[Knight Fisher]

Just put it at 25% power. There's no reason you have to go max.

[Cbriggs45]

darth vader wanted to make an example out of alderan (i typod that i know )

in rotj the second death star took down a capital ship (im showing my geek side its been a while)

the size of a small city. i believe the obama administration is doing 'murica a disservice by not making one. its can move wont be hindered by having to orbit like a spy satellite and can help invade mars. or colonize it. i mean what alien culture would then mess with homo sapiens? maybe the black oil (x-files) and borg. but come on.. Independence day would never happen. predator would never make it to earth.. and we could take out megaton. the many applications..

and think of this. in the odyssey episode where mandy alex and sarah are doing research for the pros of space travel.. think of how much we got from just going to the moon. we make a death star the countless technical advances we would get from this..

of course this is the same administration that canceled the space program funding.. so it makes me wonder.. maybe the un is making one.