OT: Kickstarter to build a Death Star

I'm in

Since we're talking OT in this thread, does everyone know John U. Bacon has another book coming out in the fall? Found out today and it totally made my week.

Is it too political to say that the White House's response to that petition was all kinds of awesome? I might even deign to say that Paul Shawcross has single handedly become my all time favorite Chief of the Science and Space Branch at the White House Office of Management and Budget. 

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/response/isnt-petition-response-youre-l...

Whoever created this Kickstarter is clearly a fan of The Hudsucker Proxy, so he's got my support!

"The goal has been set high enough to make successful funding impossible."  

You know that's just playing with fire.

So far they've raised $500,000 of the $30m goal.  That's really awesome.

I'll spend my money financiing the X-Wing squadron that is agile enough to exploit the tiny flaw in your design.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/simonkwan/crowdfunding-rebel-alliance-x-wing-squadron?ref=live

but in space...the new death stars are in early this year!

How banal.  The Death Star has already been done a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.  Now if there were a kickstarter for something in the future, like a starship named Enterprise to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldy go where no man has gone before, I would be all in.

As long as they fix the womprat sized hole in the exhaust port. Who woulda thought that would be the Achilles heel?

Isn't it more likely to do the opposite? Besides blowing up planets, there really is not much difference between the Death Star and one of those triangle things.

Lara graduated from Michigan in 1989.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/656540017/poised-for-success-a-photo...

For anyone interested, here are the articles that started this idea. This was ZeroHedge's jab at the Federal Reserve for seemingly unlimited Quantitative Easing. At least, that was my take. 

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/modest-proposal-boost-us-gdp-852-quadrilli...

The first comment on the article made me lol. 

Is beaming with pride.

This is one of the few stories where I'm proud that living in DC means this was news 2 months ago.

So what happens if (when?) this is funded, and then the guy runs off with 20 million Euros?

Guys... sorry to say, Disney cancelled this too, along with Clone Wars.  Move on.

...already are building a Death Star, or at least a kind of cyborg planet earth.  As Koolhaas pointed out in his Junkspace essay, since the advent of air conditioning & escalators architects, engineers & builders have seemingly been working on a single grand project. 

Yet to be fully connected, you can already see this playing out even locally by just looking at campus.  The Medical Center in particular is like a cancerous tumor slowly engulfing the surrounding city.  Someday, it might very connect Central & North Campus (if it doesn't overwhelm them, that is).

Later, Ann Arbor will connect to Detroit.  And that conurbation will stretch to reach similar grand projects in Chicago, New York and eventually London, Tokyo and all points beyond.  These grand city/buildings will come full circle and fully squeeze every last ounce of whatever "nature" is left and the Earth will be, if not a fully artifical Death Star, then at least a giant robot-ized rock.

Michigan stadium will probably have a roof by then.  Shit, thinking about the future makes me really look forward to being dead.

this in the growth of the Medical Center, wouldn't that me more of a Life Star?

The subtle Hudsucker Proxy reference is fantastic.

Is it strictly an offer to give money until it reaches it's goal? I can't believe that people would've actually given ~$500k to a death star project, but then again, a lot of people in the UK to identify as Jedi for their religion

"To keep costs lower the entire project will use open source hardware and software."

It would take many Linux servers of hardware designed in KiCad to hold the schematics of the main reactor alone. That being said, in reading their FAQ, I feel that making the plans publicly available to the engineering community at large does have tremendous advantages, and indeed, they would fee far more motivated to not leave it about 15% constructed as they did in Return Of The Jedi. Community ownership of such a project is essential because the ability to whack a planet can potentially benefit the community.