After petitions for secession and the White House’s beer recipe, Americans have now taken to the White House website looking to create jobs and stiffen national defense — by building the Death Star.
Just under 800 people have signed a petition for President Barack Obama to start building a Death Star, the space-faring Empire army base destroyed twice in the original Star Wars trilogy.
“Those who sign here petition the United States government to secure funding and resources, and begin construction on a Death Star by 2016,” the petition says.
“By focusing our defense resources into a space-superiority platform and weapon system such as a Death Star, the government can spur job creation in the fields of construction, engineering, space exploration, and more, and strengthen our national defense.”
More than half the federal budget goes to national defense, and military manufacturing has been used to spur the economy in the past, so the idea is not entirely far-fetched.
In December 2011, Agence France-Presse reported the U.S. Defense Agency also signed a new $3.48 billion contract with Boeing to continue efforts started during the 1980s by President Ronald Reagan for a laser-guided missile defense system popularly referred to as “Star Wars,” according to Raw Story.
The system, which was successfully tested in 2010, used space-based laser systems to lock onto missiles, predict a trajectory and knock them out of the sky with a single shot, according to
The Guardian.