Thread: White House Responds to Death Star Petition

Believe it or not, we do have enough material on Earth for a small Death Star. Remember, the thing isn't a solid ball of steel. There's a lot of space in it.

Originally Posted by Hunter Blade

Believe it or not, we do have enough material on Earth for a small Death Star. Remember, the thing isn't a solid ball of steel. There's a lot of space in it.

True true, but the petition was about a full scale version if I got it correct, right? Anyway, aside from that, we do have enough materials to make our own Death Star, I admit.

Another question which die-hard Star wars is going to have on their "we want that-list": What about gravity?

By the way, don't misunderstand me if I sound too skeptical at times. I like the idea of an artificial metal planet, I just want to solve some obvious problems through discussions and keep it fresh.

Originally Posted by GatoRage

By golly, you're right. Now we have to build it more than ever. That Obama I tell you...I certainly won't be voting for that scoundrel again.

Of course you won't, he's not running for a third term. :P

Originally Posted by TheMissingno.

That can be easily manufactured using today's technology, and anyone who has ever played a video game could pilot them.

I dunno about that. A friend of mine joined the air force a few years ago, and she's told me that learning to pilot a fighter jet was one of the most difficult things she has ever done, and she's an avid gamer who absolutely loved flight simulators before joining. By no means am I an expert in the physics of space flight, but I imagine it'd be much more difficult than flying an aircraft. You have tons of space debris to look out for, you'd be flying around at well over mach 20. The fancy flying you see in Star Wars would probably make even the most veteran pilot blackout and lose their orientation if they tried to replicate it.

Originally Posted by Caitlin

Originally Posted by GatoRage

By golly, you're right. Now we have to build it more than ever. That Obama I tell you...I certainly won't be voting for that scoundrel again.

Of course you won't, he's not running for a third term. :P

True, true. And I'm not even from the US. So the act of voting itself is....a bit of a problem for me.

/back on topic discussing potential building of Dead Star and whatnot:

Originally Posted by Caitlin

I dunno about that. A friend of mine joined the air force a few years ago, and she's told me that learning to pilot a fighter jet was one of the most difficult things she has ever done, and she's an avid gamer who absolutely loved flight simulators before joining. By no means am I an expert in the physics of space flight, but I imagine it'd be much more difficult than flying an aircraft. You have tons of space debris to look out for, you'd be flying around at well over mach 20. The fancy flying you see in Star Wars would probably make even the most veteran pilot blackout and lose their orientation if they tried to replicate it.

Well space debris is an issue, but it doesn't really factor into your ability to fly because there's no possible way you're going to be able to avoid being hit by space debris just by seeing it and moving. Also, mach number has no meaning in space since it is based on air density and there is basically no air in space. All spacecraft have an infinite mach number. We generally use kilometers per second as the normal unit for speed in space. If you're in low earth orbit, you're probably going to be traveling with an orbital speed of around 7 kilometers per second minimum. But for maneuvering your spacecraft it's not really your orbital speed that matters, it's your speed relative to whatever object you are maneuvering around.

Originally Posted by Caitlin

I dunno about that. A friend of mine joined the air force a few years ago, and she's told me that learning to pilot a fighter jet was one of the most difficult things she has ever done, and she's an avid gamer who absolutely loved flight simulators before joining. By no means am I an expert in the physics of space flight, but I imagine it'd be much more difficult than flying an aircraft. You have tons of space debris to look out for, you'd be flying around at well over mach 20. The fancy flying you see in Star Wars would probably make even the most veteran pilot blackout and lose their orientation if they tried to replicate it.

Oh, yeah, no, actual jets are super complicated and dangerous. My dad flew B-52's for 20 years. That being said though, most of those UAV drones that you hear about all the time are piloted by some of the biggest video game nerds in the service, no joke. They literally get paid to play a real life version of a video game.

As for flying in space, minor debris won't be a problem. That's what ray shielding is for in the Star Wars universe. Ray shields are for solid matter, deflector shields are for lasers, plasma, and some projectiles. It also just depends on the shield too.

Originally Posted by Hunter Blade

As for flying in space, minor debris won't be a problem. That's what ray shielding is for in the Star Wars universe. Ray shields are for solid matter, deflector shields are for lasers, plasma, and some projectiles. It also just depends on the shield too.

TIE fighters aren't equipped with shields though. =/ They aren't even pressurized, they have to wear those suits when they're flying in space.

Originally Posted by TheMissingno.

TIE fighters aren't equipped with shields though. =/ They aren't even pressurized, they have to wear those suits when they're flying in space.

That's true. TIE pilots were also some of the best pilots in the galaxy though, especially if they wanted to survive. Yeah, the guys in the X-Wings normally lived more missions, but only because they had better shielding, armor, and sensors. Either way though, we'd just have to find a way to track all of the debris in the atmosphere to make flying in and out more safe. Although TIE's are meant for space and not atmosphere, so that shouldn't be much of an issue.

Originally Posted by Hunter Blade

Originally Posted by TheMissingno.

TIE fighters aren't equipped with shields though. =/ They aren't even pressurized, they have to wear those suits when they're flying in space.

That's true. TIE pilots were also some of the best pilots in the galaxy though, especially if they wanted to survive. Yeah, the guys in the X-Wings normally lived more missions, but only because they had better shielding, armor, and sensors. Either way though, we'd just have to find a way to track all of the debris in the atmosphere to make flying in and out more safe. Although TIE's are meant for space and not atmosphere, so that shouldn't be much of an issue.

That's easy because all of the debris in space is already being tracked. It has to be to avoid destroying everything that we send up and we already have up there.

Originally Posted by TheMissingno.

That's easy because all of the debris in space is already being tracked. It has to be to avoid destroying everything that we send up and we already have up there.

I thought we were only able to track between 50%-80% of it?

The stuff that we don't track is too small to matter.

Nothing is too small to matter. Even a paint chip the size of a fingernail travelling at the speeds debris in orbit generally travels at is enough to destroy things. I believe it's just astronomical luck that we've yet to have something major like that happen because, afterall, space is vast, as is the outer reaches of the atmosphere where all of these things are whipping around.

I'm don't know a lot about Star Wars but I don't need to know that to know that this online petition is stupid and its intents (as much of a joke as they may have been) are ridiculous. I mean I'm not a fan of spending in general so anything like this makes me cringe. And on top of that the opportunity cost of giving all of these professionals work or inspiring growth in these fields means that these professionals and aspiring workers can't spend there time creating something we actually need. You don't create jobs for the sake of creating jobs; you create jobs for the sake of creating progress. It's cruel, but realistically not everyone is going to have a job.

As far as online petitions go I'm not a fan of them. Typically, the majority of America (myself included) don't fully understand what goes on in Washington or the ways in which it works. I think this petition proves that point. I'm positive there are plenty of people who signed that petition actually thinking that this was a good idea.

Originally Posted by Caitlin

Nothing is too small to matter. Even a paint chip the size of a fingernail travelling at the speeds debris in orbit generally travels at is enough to destroy things. I believe it's just astronomical luck that we've yet to have something major like that happen because, afterall, space is vast, as is the outer reaches of the atmosphere where all of these things are whipping around.

Eh, most satellites destined for low earth orbit have some kind of shielding to protect them from the small stuff. The space shuttle had 2 inch thick windows in order to protect from such things. Here is a picture of the window of a space shuttle (not sure which one) after a collision with a paint fleck:



Also, things like that have happened several times in the past. The most notable that comes to mind is the Iridium Cosmos collision in 2009. Both satellites were being tracked and expected to pass within several kilometers of each other, but one of the satellites (probably the Russian one since it had been out of service since 1995) was slightly off course so they collided and were both destroyed.

There was also a French satellite (I don't remember what it was called) that was one of the first examples of gravity gradient stabilization, so it needed to extend a long boom in order to stay stable. Within a few hours, the satellite was tumbling uncontrollably because the boom had been knocked off by a piece of space debris.

As a final example, here is an image of one of space station Mir's solar arrays as a result of several small debris collision:

So small things are really hitting other things all the time up there. While they can do some damage, large objects that are being tracked do a considerably larger amount of damage.

I'd say "astronomical luck" is that falling space debris has not landed on a person yet. Once that happens I think there is a chance that we might finally see a push to clean up space.

Originally Posted by Beck

I'm don't know a lot about Star Wars but I don't need to know that to know that this online petition is stupid and its intents (as much of a joke as they may have been) are ridiculous. I mean I'm not a fan of spending in general so anything like this makes me cringe. And on top of that the opportunity cost of giving all of these professionals work or inspiring growth in these fields means that these professionals and aspiring workers can't spend there time creating something we actually need. You don't create jobs for the sake of creating jobs; you create jobs for the sake of creating progress. It's cruel, but realistically not everyone is going to have a job.

As far as online petitions go I'm not a fan of them. Typically, the majority of America (myself included) don't fully understand what goes on in Washington or the ways in which it works. I think this petition proves that point. I'm positive there are plenty of people who signed that petition actually thinking that this was a good idea.

I signed the petition just to see if the White House would actually *consider* it. I didn't expect anyone from the Obama administration would go so far as to write a full response explaining why it wasn't a good idea, though. I guess they thought it was worth their time to do so.

I was looking over the response again and wondered what Shawcross meant by President Obama knowing his way around a lightsaber. Technically, lightsabers don't exist (except as kid's toys and props from the movies). I assume this was an attempt at a joke?

EDIT: I found the photo Shawcross was referring to.



And the other problem I have with his response:

"...[we have the] Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which is supporting research on building Luke's arm, floating droids, and quadruped walkers." So we can expect AT-STs ("chicken walkers") and AT-ATs in the future American military? Really?