Last updated on February 8th, 2013 at 12:51 am
That’s a “no” to the Star Wars Death Star petition to the White House. “This Isn’t the Petition Response You’re Looking For,” they warn in response. Apparently the super serious people at the White House do not support blowing up planets. So dies another American dream.
The White House has responded, as they do to all petitions that get over 25,000 signatures, to the call for the U.S. to build a Death Star. The Star Wars petition got over 34,000 signatures. This is the cost of open initiatives in the age of the Internet.
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“The Administration shares your desire for job creation and a strong national defense, but a Death Star isn’t on the horizon,” writes Paul Shawcross, Chief of the Science and Space Branch at the White House Office of Management and Budget. After all, he notes dryly, “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.”
Also, just in case the White House’s policy is not clear, “The Administration does not support blowing up planets.”
But even more importantly, Shawcross asks, “Why would we spend countless taxpayer dollars on a Death Star with a fundamental flaw that can be exploited by a one-man starship?” Doh!
Or perhaps that was the President speaking, since he tweeted:
Why would we spend taxpayer dollars on a Death Star with a fundamental flaw that can be exploited by a 1-man starship? OFA.BO/yfxWt3
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) January 12, 2013
He mitigates the great letdown with a picture of Obama using a light saber and a shooting marshmallow cannon, “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.”
Watch the President using 14-year-old inventor Joey Hudy’s “Extreme Marshmallow Cannon:
Not to be sad, Death Star petitioners: “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.”
This must be shocking news to conservatives, who are sure the space program has been dismantled, “Kind of difficult to do after the space program was dismantled.”
Also, “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.”
He finishes his bad news by encouraging the petitoners to pursue a career in science, “If you do pursue a career in a science, technology, engineering or math-related field, the Force will be with us!”
Shawcross tries some final logic on the surely disappointed Death Star petitioners, “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.”
Image: President Barack Obama uses a Star Wars light saber as he parries with fencer Tim Morehouse during the U.S. Olympians youth sporting event on the South Lawn of the White House, Sept. 16, 2009.
(Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
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