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20th Century Fox
Can the open-source community build a fully operational Death Star battle station?
The White House may have turned down the idea of building a real-life Death Star, but now it's the open-source community's turn. A Kickstarter crowd-funding project calls for raising £20 million ($31 million) to design a battle station worthy of Darth Vader. So far, more than £20,000 ($31,000) has been pledged. The funding deadline? April Fool's Day.
The $31 million would go toward fleshing out the project's initial schematic — basically, a round circle — and buying "enough chicken wire to protect reactor exhaust ports." As any "Star Wars" fan knows, those ports were the Achilles' heel of the fictional Death Star, giving Luke Skywalker the opportunity to blow the darn thing up long ago in a galaxy far away.
The stretch goal would be to raise the $850 quadrillion (£543 quadrillion) that would be required for actual construction. A recent estimate claimed that's how much it'd cost just to buy the steel for a Death Star, but that figure has recently come under question. In any case, this project would keep the costs low by using open-source hardware and software.
If the pledges don't amount to £20 million by April 1 (heh, heh), the project will fizzle out — and no one will be obliged to pay up. Makes you wonder how much would have been raised if the goal was $20,000 instead.
The creator of the project describes himself as a resident of Leicestershire in Britain, and he's associated with a website registered to Nick Petkovich. Efforts to contact the project manager weren't immediately successful — but based on the Kickstarter description, he's not planning to roll up his sleeves anytime soon.
Project risks? "The only risk is the power of the Force." 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."
Hmm. I can think of at least three replies to that:
- I find your lack of faith disturbing.
- You underestimate the power of the Dark Side.
- Who's the more foolish? The fool, or the fool who follows him?
What's your take? Do feel free to add your comments below. But do, or do not. There is no "try."
More about science-fiction construction projects:
- White House turns thumbs down on Death Star
- Empire strikes back with response to Death Star petition
- White House petition to build Starship Enterprise fizzles
Tip o' the Log to TechCrunch.
Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.
Leave a Comment:
Calling all suckers... calling all suckers. Be on the lookout for an opportunity to invest in a Death Star and make someone rich.
Um, how can there be suckers? It's entirely a gag with a goal set so high to be unrealistically obtainable. And since the goal cannot be reached, no money can be collected from anyone who pledged.
I'm a Star Wars fan, but this is just rediculous. A waste of time money and effort.
Why not work towards something useful and achieveable, like spin induced artificial gravity in low orbit.
No room for fun in your life, ED? C'mon, all work and no play makes ED a dull boy...
It was a fun idea when first proposed. Persisting is just stupid.
It's a joke. No money is going to be wasted on it, except perhaps the time spent by the guy that set it up, and that would be his time to waste. Based on the goal of buying enough chicken wire to protect the vents, I'm guessing this isn't going to take very much away from efforts to develop spin-induced artificial gravity, lol. Lighten up a bit. If he wants to waste his time having some fine, I'm pretty sure that's within his rights.
(cue the 'Imperial March' , sound up on James Earl Jones breathy DV voice)
We'll see who is joking, when the Death Star appears in the sky over Earth and you are all on your knees begging for your lives. Bwahahahahaha."
(Ok, Darth Vader never said "Bwahahahaha", but he would have)
Forget the fundraising, BUT, imagine if it were an open source design which could be contributed by anyone. Imagine IF new ideas DID indeed emerge from a not-so-serious effort to design something new. Maybe people use it as an intellectual exercise and discover new ways for people to interact and get along, or lend inspiration for a new technology.
Though I support your conceptual thinking 100%, it is worth noting that the Death Star is a depiction of a "historical event". It is not a new idea.
A fool and his money are soon parted.
Not going to happen. The target is unattainable. No one's bank account will be deducted.
Build a shelter for homeless people and hire a staff. Money better spent.
Why not make the homeless into Stormtroopers?
They get homes and steady work while the Death Star gets manned. It's a win-win, if you ask me.
That WOULD explain why they can never seem to hit anything... they were never trained, just pulled in off the space-streets.
I can just see the pitch...
"Tired of living in a space dumpster? Looking to get out of the space gutter and make some space bucks? Join the Imperial Army today and enlist as a Storm Trooper! In the Imperial Army, you get a plastic space suit, a space laser with the sights permanently welded out of alignment, and hot space meals!"
Pragmatic you forgot, they have cookies!!
Didn't PT Barnum already do this.....a while back....with a simple egress?????
Are you kidding me. This is still going on.
even if this were real it would take sooooo much more than 31 million dollars to build it. it would take more money than exists on the planet...several times over...
Or more steel than the Earth even has that we are able to mine.
dont doubt the human race. Have faith as we may ruin our only place to live. It would not be a money issue at that point but a resource point. Money never really matter as its all just an object.
I prefer we build a Millennium Falcon.
....cheaper....and it'll make the Kessel run in 12 parsecs....
da doc,
...under 12 parsecs. Not one of George's better bits of dialog.
No no no, it's really deeper than that. See if the vessel doesn't move through space but moves through worm holes, then doing anything in less distance is a good thing....
Or he just *#%*ed up...
I can cut the costs down to less than half a gazillion dollars - make an inflatable Virtual Death Star . Put in giant bug zappers designed for X-Wing fighters for defense, and replace the lasers with Tasers. Put cheap carpet around the core of the Death Star, and build giant robots to scuff their feet on the carpet and use the resulting shocks from their fingertips to power the Tasers.
Fill the inflatable mylar Death Star with hydrogen so it will float to the edge of the atmosphere, then send up a guy in one of those suborbital commercial flights. He can stand in the doorway of the rocket and kick the inflated Death Star into orbit. Then purge the hydrogen, add a couple of ounces of regular old air to reinflate it, and Voila!
The result will look like a Death Star, and we are never going to actually use it, so there you are.
They will be beating a path to your door. To take you up on your offer or jail you for exposing the real plan.
While displacing the lighter Hydrogen with heavier air, it might be a good idea to make sure all of your Stormtroopers are non-smokers. While the resulting visual effects would be spectacular, the thermal radiation from creating a moon-sized Hindenburg in low orbit over the Earth's surface might make your "Death Star" a bit more functional than desired?
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ITS A TRAP!!!
Did anyone ever get the Brooklyn Bridge resold?
You won't be around that long to see it to fruition.
I will donate the entire $850 quadrillion if I can raise 1 quadrillion within 30 years. If you're interested, please send me the money now. This is not a Ponzi scheme, I have no intention of telling anyone that they will get any money out of this but me. Thank you.
After reading that, all I can come up with is, 'WTF??'
Anyone, like Pakistan, Iran, Russia could build a rocket to knock it out. Wouldn't take very much. Death to the Death Star......
Oh, you think so?
How much damage to you think a rocket can do? I mean, as long as we're operating within the ridiculous basis of a moon-sized space station reaching some decent level of completion, anything less than a nuclear-armed rocket would just put a little crater in it. A nuclear warhead would only do enough damage to shut down a small part of the station, due to the sheer size of the thing.
But I suppose it's more feasible than a proton torpedo to the exhaust port.
A huge battle cruiser plunged into the Death Star with little effect. What do you think a missle could do? It'd be too big to make it down the exhaust port!
Again with the Death Star? Maybe the end really IS near...
this are great news..... is stormtrooper suit included in donation? if not can it b tax deducted? long live darth vader master of universe
So, what would they do with the damn thing, if they had it...?
Even taking over the world isn't that simple with an all-or-nothing weapon...and no other (known) habitable worlds to go to, afterward.
What's that? Crank the power down, and destroy a few cities, to show that you mean business?
Then you don't need anything as big or powerful as a Death Star...
(However, the 'one well-known flaw' argument is irrelevant, if no one on Earth also has X-Wing fighters. I mean, does it matter to you that Superman is vulnerable to kryptonite, if you don't have and can't get any?)
That is true, however, if someone could actually build a death star, I think someone somewhere would match it with a few X-Wings...
That's what the chicken wire is for. ;)
I read somewhere it would take 7000 years to complete the wiring.
Man 1: These are the suckers you're looking for.... move along (waves hand)
Man 2: These are the suckers you're looking for... move along (waves hand)
If the government is involved,it will never get built. They will spend 2/3 of budget on examining what it will cost. and the other 1/3 in paper and ink .
Ya know the MarsOne people have one way trips to Mars right??
I'm pretty sure the 850 quadrillion should include wireless.
anyone else find it a little ironic that the deadline is on Aprils fools day
Calling all fools?
No it's not ironic. It's obviously set to end on that day intentionally.
Nice catch!