The U.S. Government has finally responded to the “Death Star” petition submitted to its “We the People” website. The petition, which was submitted on November 14th, tries to persuade the government to build a ‘Death Star’ by 2016. For the uninitiated, Death Star is a fictional, moon-sized space station that is capable of destroying planets with a laser beam. It appears in the Star Wars series of movies.
While responding in the negative, the U.S. administration provided the following reasons:
The construction of the Death Star has been estimated to cost more than $850,000,000,000,000,000. In this time of economic uncertainty and fighting in Congress over the national debt, it seems that President Obama is more interested in reducing the deficit, rather than expanding it.
The Administration does not support blowing up planets.The government doesn’t want to spend countless taxpayer dollars on a Death Star that has a fundamental flaw that can be exploited by a one-man starship.
The White House is obliged to respond to a petition if it receives more than 25,000 signatures. In this case, the required number was reached in almost less than a month.
Chief of the Science and Space Branch at the White House Office, Paul Shawcross, posted this response, reasoning with the petitioners using their own medicine, ie, Star Wars references. The pertinent parts of the response:
“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.”
“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.”
by RTT Staff Writer
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