Here's the link to the full response, love it! https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/response/isnt-petition-response-youre-looking
White House rejects Death Star petition: '$850qn too pricey'
Remember that "We the People" petition begun last month that asked the Obama administration to build a Star Wars–style Death Star? Well, the White House has responded with a witty rejoinder that essentially boils down to "Fuggedaboutit." "The Administration shares your desire for job creation and a strong national defense," …
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Sunday 13th January 2013 00:17 GMT Destroy All Monsters
Re: This
Will be a great surprise to the many left-leaning Americans who would consider that "deficits don't matter" and that debt is of no consequence because "we owe it to ourselves". Hopefully Krugman will write up a column exposing the fallacies in the White House's reasoning and we can get this government superprogram rolling.
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Sunday 13th January 2013 01:05 GMT Steve Knox
Re: This
That's not left-leaning; that's left-fallen-off. In the US these days, left-leaning just means that you believe that taxes are one part of a sound fiscal policy, that guns, while they shouldn't be completely illegal, should not be freely handed out on street corners, and that rape victims shouldn't be further punished by having to choose between nine months of physical labor or being raped again by machine.
But you go ahead and pat yourself on the back. That straw man put up quite a fight!
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Sunday 13th January 2013 04:12 GMT dssf
Re: This
No, that was another morphing, which became "the right to HARM bears"....
OAN, I would like to see a Death Star try to take on a Borg cube, or take on the Xindi. The Andorians might cut tail and run, though. And, the Thoilians might as well kiss their slow, diamond-shaped asses goodbye with their slo-mo electric yarn in space thingy. And, how about a Death Star against a Dyson's Sphere (the one in STTNG)?
And, boy, wouldn't it be fun to see Species 8472 make mince meat out of a Death Star crew. Shrieking and shrilling would haunt Darthy to no end.
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Saturday 12th January 2013 18:50 GMT Epobirs
Huge missed opportunity.
The first step in such a project would focus on the portions e have some idea of how to do. FTL drives, planet destroying beams, and much else about a Death Star is currently beyond our knowledge.
But what if we start with the stuff we do have an idea of how to do and work up from there? We may never have a Death Star amusement park in solar orbit but the intent of creating the framework of such an object would be a good D.D. Harriman sort of dodge to kick start an asteroid mining operation. Once you have that, a vast amount of potential is unleashed. (Whoever produced a cost estimate based on boosting all of the mass needed up from the Earth's gravity well really needs to read more on the subject of large scale extra-planetary construction.)
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Saturday 12th January 2013 20:28 GMT Anonymous Coward
>> the intent of creating the framework of such an object
Put that way it sounds like a risky trick:
(1) United World Govts put out tender to procure materials to build a Death Star
(2) The ingenious Harriman executes the low bid, mining asteroids, etc
(3) UWG say "ha-ha! actually we've no idea how to build a real Death Star. And if we write you a cheque for that orbiting stockpile the electors will string us up. But don't worry about that - you've shown how resourceful you are and the potential is vast"
(4) The ingenious Harriman sets about creating a proper vengeance weapon - dispensing with an FTL drive and adding a fine objective to sear "CHEAPSKATE PUNK" on the arses of all involved.
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Saturday 12th January 2013 19:46 GMT Anonymous Coward
borrow the money and not pay it back
"As for the price, well they could always borrow the money and not pay it back like they seem to do for everything else."
You do understand, I hope, that for some people, receiving interest on that money is preferable to having the principle paid back, right?
Oh you don't?
What a surprise.
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Saturday 12th January 2013 20:24 GMT Jason Hindle
Funny thing is
While building a Death Star is absurd, a major government sponsored project such as putting humans on Mars for a few years, or even practically sending a probe to another solar system and back could stimulate innovation in business and growth in the economy (thinking what the US had to do collectively, to send people to the moon, or even the Lavi fighter jet project, which stimulated a modern, high tech industry in Israel).
Of course, such a project could never happen here in Blighty - all the money would go abroad.
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Monday 14th January 2013 10:15 GMT annodomini2
@LDS
Saying there is 'no chance', is like saying to someone 200years ago that we'd all be walking round with personal communication devices.
Doing it in someone's lifetime would be a challenge, but 100-150 years is feasible. It would require more effort than is financially viable, but it's not impossible.
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Saturday 12th January 2013 20:58 GMT Anonymous Coward
What irony
This decision by Obama who's re-inugural committee is soliciting $1 Million or more per "donation" for face time with the President, even though they use mostly tax payer money to pay for the inauguration and anything they can attached to the inauguration, aka theft of tax payer funds.
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Saturday 12th January 2013 23:25 GMT Naughtyhorse
Re: What irony
whaaaaaa
a republican talking about the mis-appropriation of public money???
so i guess the answer to the question "Who were the republicans trying to fool by not having Bush, or any of his cabinet attend their last convention?" would be _you_ then. And a bloody good job they have done.
Seeing as the tide is out right now, i have a once-in-a-lifetime deal on some prime development land that only a smart operator like you, or that very nice Mr trump would be interested in......
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Sunday 13th January 2013 22:07 GMT Naughtyhorse
Re: @Naughtyhorse: What irony
talk about delusonal,
not too sure what you actually read inside that bubble of yours...
i never made any claims as to the fiscal propietary-ness of obama. unless of course you are reading the version of this site scraped by fox news and re-presented in o'reileyVision.
dumbass redneck writes on a forum and makes a tit of himself...
film at 11
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Saturday 12th January 2013 20:59 GMT Irony Deficient
quantitative easing via platinum coins
The US Treasury could authorize the minting of 852,000 trillion-dollar platinum coins, deposit them at the Federal Reserve, and the subsequent introduction of the largest public works project in recorded history would effectively end unemployment until Sol became a red giant. (No Treasury bonds issued, so no effect on either the deficit or the debt ceiling. Inflationary effects would depend upon how quickly the
Death StarNational Space Station construction projects ramped up.) -
Saturday 12th January 2013 21:25 GMT DJO
Well a death star was a pretty silly idea but a 2001 style spinning space station is achievable. Perhaps not in orbit but at L2 so the solar radiation is shielded by the bulk of the Earth. Not cheap but not ludicrously expensive if built over a couple of decades.
Or maybe build Thunderbird 5 manned by a remote controlled puppet for the really cheap option.
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Sunday 13th January 2013 04:29 GMT dssf
How much would it cost to build a Galactica, TRS type?
Since we can see the WH would not go for a Death Star, then, what about BSG-type ships? Instead of going after expensive future tech for planet-slicing laser/maser/plaser beams, hyperlight jumps, and being the size of a planet, why not build frames, then haul partial factories out to the promising A belts, then finish construction there?
Then, build, locally, the ships and vehicles necessary to haul to other planets the various suitable spheres and domes to our own solar system planets. Over time, if mounting from asteroids or comets or other suitable rocky bodies with less gravity, we could probably launch vastly heavier, better-shielded, slightly faster ships to go out on farther exploratory runs.
Just asking. So, how much would a Galactica type of ship cost? Same hull, with the landing bays supporting excavators, then mid body having the factories, and the fwd end the habitability section. It could even. Be modular so the ship could almost operate like a very huge Moon Base Alpha Lunar Lander/Eagle Shuttle. The Hab/Engine section could haul the factories around and maybe even the landing bays could detach or go with the hauler as required for various mining missions. Get all the interested nations involved. Then apply those platinum coins to it.
But, what might be scary is if on those asteroids, 6 BILLION TONS of platinum suddenly are discovered. Talk about astronomical inflation...Would their screams be heard from that far in space?
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Monday 14th January 2013 14:23 GMT Loyal Commenter
Re: X prize ver 2.0
"It always made me wonder what George was smoking when he wrote that line. Given that a Parsec is a unit of distance (about 3.2 lightyears) what was he on about?"
I have thought about this, and come to the conclusion that the Kessell Run must be some sort of variation on the travelling salesman problem, and Hans Solo had managed to stumble upon a proof for P = NP.
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Monday 14th January 2013 14:34 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: X prize ver 2.0
The Kessel Run was one of the most heavily used smuggling routes in the Galactic Empire.[3] Han Solo claimed that his Millennium Falcon "made the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs". A parsec was a unit of distance, not time. Solo was not referring directly to his ship's speed when he made this claim. Instead, he was referring to the shorter route he was able to travel by skirting the nearby Maw black hole cluster, thus making the run in under the standard distance. By moving closer to the black holes, Solo managed to cut the distance down to about 11.5 parsecs.[source?] The smuggler, BoShek, actually beat Solo's record in his ship, Infinity, but without cargo to weigh him down. A few months later, Han Solo beat both his own and BoShek's records in a run he made with Luke Skywalker.[2]
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Kessel_Run
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