White House vs Deathstar

[VJ]

Some people started a petition at the White House:
Those who sign here petition the United States government to secure funding and resources, and begin construction on a Death Star by 2016.

As a large enough number of people voted, the White House issued an official statement:
This Isn't the Petition Response You're Looking For

[cjolley]

That was great.
I'll bet they had fun writing it.

[Dr Mordrid]

Well played response to the petition, but underlying the petition is that NASA funding is unstable, pork driven, poorly allocated and unfocussed. There are those in both parties that want to take much of the project decisionmaking out of the US Senate where abominations like the uber$$ Space Senate Launch System are the rule and not the exception. Others would like to see NASA get a fixed percentage of the budget vs. some arbitrary number. Proposals range between 0.8 and 1 percent. The latter would give NASA $30B vs. the current ~$18B, which is gutting the Science Directorate funding.

[cjolley]

Oh for heavens sake.

[Kruzin]

There has also been a recent petition to build a 'Starship Enterprise', as well as many other ridiculous petitions.
Anyone can write up whatever they want, call it a petition, and hunt for signatures. Doesn't mean it's gonna happen.

[Dr Mordrid]

A better petition would be to build the NAUTILUS-X, which is very do-able.

http://digitalvideo.8m.net/nasa/nautilus-x.pdf

[cjolley]

Doc, do you get that the Death Star petition was a lighthearted geeky joke answered with a lighthearted geeky answer?

In any event, why don't you start a NAUTILUS-X petition yourself?

[Dr Mordrid]

Parts of the aerospace community adopted it as a synonym for the spending boondoggles that are SLS and JWST.

[Fat Tone]

If the Govt won't do it, maybe the people will:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/461687407/kickstarter-open-source-death-star

[Dr Mordrid]

Interesting NASA bolgpost

http://wiki.nasa.gov/cm/blog/nasadotgov/posts/post_1360093494762.html

[Marshmallowman]

If the Govt won't do it, maybe the people will:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...rce-death-star

So does that mean we get a deathstar for each contributor?

or just some gold plated chicken wire