Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: karajorma on January 12, 2013, 09:36:27 am
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Typical.
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
The whole thing (with hyperlinks) is available from here (https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/secure-resources-and-funding-and-begin-construction-death-star-2016/wlfKzFkN).
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Yup, was reading this on the BBC :D
First thought that occurred to me is that having a Death Star in orbit leaves it with only one target, and it's us.
Though, if I really wanted to wind people up and I was the US Government, I'd have just made a press release of 'What do you think the Moon is?', and then spend the day watching conspiracy theorists heads explode ;)
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Don't be ridiculous, Flipside. Moon disguised as a Death Star? Preposterous. Anyone who has more than a single brain cell (I have at least 4, 3 of those are confirmed to work, not that I'm bragging or anything) knows that the Moon is just a hollowed out space dock in which a giant atmosphere vacuum cleaner (http://forums.macresource.com/file.php?1,file=3659,filename=megamaid-spaceballs.jpg) is hidden.
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It's actually Cathedral Terra, but that's neither here nor there.
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What... is this?
Is this real? Did someone put that petition in, and they got a response from someone with a sense of humour in the White House?
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This is real. Best. President. evar;
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This is real. Best. President. evar;
Thanks. But it wasn't Obama himself that responded.
That is nice though. Must have been a slow day at the office.
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I know it wasn't, but the mention of STEM and the White House petitions are all his doing.
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seems 2013 will be the year of petitions :wakka:
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The most hilarious thing to me is that the DoD actually has an estimate on how much the Death Star would cost.
Assuming he didn't make that number up out of thin air, naturally.
EDIT: Derp, there's a link to where they got that figure at the website.
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That's funny, I thought it was just plucked from thin air.
What's the US defecit, something like $15 trillion?
$852 quadrillion for a shiny new Death Star? He he, makes the US deficit look like pocket change.
How long would it take to build the thing?
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Well it took the Empire the entire time it took for Luke Skywalker to grow up. So I doubt the US is doing it in less than 18 years. :p
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What about the second one? That one seemed like it was built in a considerably shorter time frame.
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What about the second one? That one seemed like it was built in a considerably shorter time frame.
Someone more familiar with the Star Wars extended universe can probably answer better than I can, but I'll bet it was a case of parallel construction. Those dastardly rebels just didn't figure out that there was a second one, until it was nearly finished.
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I had a look after my last post, supposedly it was lots of self replicating construction droids or something, 2-4 years for Death Star 2. It was started shortly before the destruction of the first Death Star.
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the death star isnt really that effective of a weapon. i mean they built two of them and only blew up one planet. your better off putting engines on asteroids and flying them in.
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the death star isnt really that effective of a weapon. i mean they built two of them and only blew up one planet. your better off putting engines on asteroids and flying them in.
You just have that scene from Babylon 5, where Londo is watching Narn get shot to bits by mass drivers, playing on constant repeat in your head, don't you?
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What about the second one? That one seemed like it was built in a considerably shorter time frame.
Someone more familiar with the Star Wars extended universe can probably answer better than I can, but I'll bet it was a case of parallel construction. Those dastardly rebels just didn't figure out that there was a second one, until it was nearly finished.
Nearly finished? Half of it wasn't even there!
Though yes, it was operational and kicked ass. Somebody just decided not to board up the giant hole that leads straight to the core of it with I don't know, cheap plywood
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Nearly finished? Half of it wasn't even there!
Relevance to the point? It doesn't matter if it was half-finished, three-quarters-finished, or finished-finished; that doesn't preclude the apparently accelerated construction schedule from being an artifact of parallel construction.
Actually, I really like what Lorric brought in about self-replicating construction droids. (I only wish that the canon material combined it with the parallel construction, but no matter.) The more time your infrastructure is used for construction, the faster and more capable your construction infrastructure becomes? I want those little bastards in my KSP vehicle assembly building!
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the death star isnt really that effective of a weapon. i mean they built two of them and only blew up one planet. your better off putting engines on asteroids and flying them in.
You just have that scene from Babylon 5, where Londo is watching Narn get shot to bits by mass drivers, playing on constant repeat in your head, don't you?
i love that scene!
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It's actually Cathedral Terra, but that's neither here nor there.
I thought it was Dahak.
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34.000+ signatures :)