Appeal on ‘We the People’ website argues building the giant planet-vaporizing weapon will be good for job creation. What will President Barack Obama say?
Braden Goyette | Nydailynews
More than 17,000 people have signed a petition asking the U.S. government to create a “Death Star.”
A petition on the White House website calling for the government to build a “Star Wars”-style “Death Star” by 2016 has garnered more than 17,000 signatures.
The authors of the strange appeal call on the Obama administration to recreate the giant planet-destroying spacecraft from George Lucas’s 1977 film, citing a strengthened national defense and job creation as some of the benefits.
“By focusing our defense resources into a space-superiority program and weapon system such as a Death Star,” the petition reads, “the government can spur job creation in the fields of construction, engineering, space exploration, and more, and strengthen our national defense.”
So far 17,139 have signed the online petition, hosted on the White House’s “We The People” site, which allows anyone to flag an issue they think the government needs to address. If the petition gets 25,000 signatures by Dec. 14, it will be reviewed by White House staff.
But that doesn’t mean Obama is going to weigh in. “Petition responses will come from a variety of Administration officials, including staff at the White House,” according to the website. “From time to time President Obama may respond directly to petitions, but we expect most of responses to come from other Administration officials.”