Could also have been titled: This is precisely the snark I was looking for.
I mock politicians and the folks they hire on a semi-regular basis. On the blog, on Twitter, in person, you name it. But every so often, I have to give them their due. It’s a little late–and by a little I mean pretty much half a year, but I just got round to reading and doing something about this. Someone, apparently with a hugely awesome amount of time on their hands, actually petitioned the US government to build a death star for national defense. That self-same person got over 30000 other people with awesomely huge amounts of time on their hands to sign it. The result? The White House was legally required–this was before they raised that requirement to 100000–to respond to that petition. And respond, they did. Oh good lord did they ever.
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 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 Housescience 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
You know, if they’d put the money they’re sinking into things like the NSA into stuff like this instead, we might actually have something here. And to think–the only folks who may or may not have been mocked to write this thing are, well, the folks what gave that petition legs in the first place. Now, if they’d just get on with providing federal funding for the development of a replicator a la Star Trek, good things just might happen. Like the ability to download a pizza. Hey–I’d download a pizza.