Slashdot Mirror


White House Must Answer Petition To 'Build Death Star'

EdIII writes "The White House petition to secure funding for building the Death Star has garnered over 25,000 signatures, which means the White House must officially respond. I can't wait to see it. My question to Slashdot readers: what modifications would you add to the proposed Death Star? Obviously, as one journalist put it, 'guardrails around any of the facility's seemingly endless number of bridges, spans, shafts and pits.' What other changes would you ask your representatives to make?"

6 of 384 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Remove the obvious structural weaknesses by hectorh · · Score: 5, Insightful

    For the same reason smoke stacks and ventilation ducts have the least number of turns and bends: any obstruction creates back-pressure ... and back pressure is something you don't want when you are trying to dissipate excess heat during a SCRAM.

    Then again ... whoever thought they could hit a 1.5 meter target while travelling at 250+ meters / second ....

  2. Re:This by Xebikr · · Score: 5, Insightful

    No. It just shows that Americans are taking Obama's online petitions just as seriously as he does.

  3. Re:Sad; by Hatta · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The white house needs no help trivializing those petitions. The entire site provides nothing but an illusion of having a voice. They were completely ignoring petitions with 75,000 signatures long before the jokes began.

    --
    Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
  4. Re:Remove the obvious structural weaknesses by pwizard2 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Why even have a central core at all? A distributed power system (hundreds of smaller reactors throughout the structure instead of one big reactor at the core) would completely eliminate that vulnerability and improve power uptime through sheer redundancy. An attacking force would have to destroy the Death Star piece by piece instead of blowing up the main core all at once.

    --
    "It is a denial of justice not to stretch out a helping hand to the fallen; that is the common right of humanity."
  5. Re:Remove the obvious structural weaknesses by pwizard2 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Something that always bothered me was the fact that they put the Emperor's Throne Room on top of a spindly little tower. IIRC that tower room used to be the command center before the emperor showed up! Sure it had a great view and lots of ambiance but such critical facilities should have been far deeper in the structure. If a pilot could hit a small exhaust port, then (if not for the shield) surely one of the Rebel capital ships could destroy that tower and get rid of the emperor AND the command center in one shot.

    Their entire line of defense was ONE shield (with no redundancy/backup) controlled from a poorly defended bunker staffed by incompetent soldiers. What could possibly go wrong?

    --
    "It is a denial of justice not to stretch out a helping hand to the fallen; that is the common right of humanity."
  6. Re:Remove the obvious structural weaknesses by MacGyver2210 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I don't think logic plays a large role here. The Emperor could shoot friggin' lightning bolts from his hand, but couldn't save himself from falling down a shaft?

    Come on...consistency.

    --
    If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it can't be taken on its own merits