By: Dominic Jones
We reported several weeks
back about a group of fans petitioning the U.S government to build a Death Star. They gathered the needed 25,000 signatures, thus forcing the White House to respond. The response, written by Chief of the Science and Space Branch at the White House Office of
Management and Budget Paul Shawcross, is
very tongue-in-cheek and pretty much destroys any hope of a Death Star
in the near future. Check it out below:
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
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