A White House petition to build the death star from Star Wars received the 25,000 necessary signatures to warrant an official response. The official White House response was essentially a no, citing the estimated $852 quadrillion dollar cost of building a death star as the reason. Hey, that’s only 13,000 times the entire world’s yearly GDP and a redonkulous amount of steel. No biggie.
Now a Kickstarter called the Open Source Death Star project has been started by Gnut. Their goal is to raise £20 million ($31.5 million) to create “detailed plans and enough chicken wire to protect reactor exhaust ports.” Their stretch goal is $850 quadrillion. Bit of a stretch.
They already have over 1200 backers who’ve pledged over £207,000 ($326,000). And how could they resist backing it with an “initial design” diagram like this:
You know, for kids!
Their humor doesn’t end there. The Kickstarter’s Q&A section says they hope the final plans have “at least twice the resolution of the initial design.” They also explain their use of open source plans:
Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t the downfall of the first Death Star due to open source plans?
No, the first Death Stars was closed source and the theft of the plans resulting in the loss of many Bothan lives. Had the previous Death Star plans been more open, someone might have spotted the obvious design flaw. We believe that an open source project is safer, cheaper and better for everyone.
Then Technabob had to come along and drop a steaming Jar Jar all over my dreams.
It’s clearly a joke, as the project’s creators have indicated on their project page under ‘Risks and Challenges’: “The main challenge is assuring Kickstarter that this is a joke and not a serious project. As proof, the goal has been set high enough to make successful funding almost impossible.” [Technabob]
IT’S STILL REAL TO ME, DAMN IT.
[Banner image via gurusblog.]