Nel 1789 gli Stati Uniti d'America varano la loro Costituzione. Le prime tre parole contengono l'ideale della democrazia repubblicana: noi, il Popolo. Dal Settembre 2011 l'amministrazione Obama ha attivato un portale (
We The People) con lo scopo di raccogliere le petizioni online. Dai 13 anni di età chiunque può creare una petizione con relativa raccolta di firme, ma il sito di una specifica petizione non sarà visibile a tutti fino alla soglia minima di 150 adesioni. Secondo filtro: 5 mila firme in 30 giorni: in tal caso la richiesta sarà esaminata e riceverà una risposta ufficiale.
Aveva quindi pieno diritto di essere ascoltata la richiesta del 14 Novembre 2012 inerente la richiesta di costruire la Morte Nera
("Secure resources and funding, and begin construction of a Death Star by 2016").
Aveva altrettanto diritto, quindi, la Casa Bianca a rispondere come ha risposto: con ironia e precisione: costa troppo (850 milioni di miliardi di dollari) e il nostro obiettivo è
ridurre il deficit, non aumentarlo; non è nostra intenzione far saltare
in aria pianeti; sarebbe troppo vulnerabile, dato che può essere fatta saltare in aria da una navetta spaziale guidata da un uomo solo.
Nella risposta, firmata da Paul Shawcross
(capo dell’ufficio bilancio per la scienza e lo spazio), si legge anche
che l'amministrazione condivide il desiderio di creare posti di
lavoro e di garantire la difesa nazionale, ma una Morte Nera non è nei piani del Presidente Obama.
Ecco di seguito la risposta originale.
Che la Forza sia con voi!
Andrea Mameli www.linguaggiomacchina.it 13 Gennaio 2013
This Isn’t the Petition Response You’re Looking For
By Paul Shawcross
The Administration shares your desire for job creation and a strong
national defense, but a Death Star isn’t on the horizon. Here are a few
reasons:
- The construction of the Death Star has been estimated to cost more than $850,000,000,000,000,000. We’re working hard to reduce the deficit, not expand it.
- The Administration does not support blowing up planets.
- Why would we spend countless taxpayer dollars on a Death Star with a
fundamental flaw that can be exploited by a one-man starship?
However, look carefully (
here’s how)
and you’ll notice something already floating in the sky — that’s no
Moon, it’s a Space Station! Yes, we already have a giant, football
field-sized
International Space Station
in orbit around the Earth that’s helping us learn how humans can live
and thrive in space for long durations. The Space Station has six
astronauts — American, Russian, and Canadian — living in it right now,
conducting research, learning how to live and work in space over long
periods of time, routinely welcoming visiting spacecraft and repairing
onboard garbage mashers, etc. We’ve also got two robot science labs — one wielding a laser — roving around Mars, looking at whether life ever existed on the Red Planet.
Keep in mind, space is no longer just government-only. Private American companies, through
NASA’s Commercial Crew and Cargo Program Office (C3PO), are ferrying cargo — and soon, crew — to space for NASA, and are pursuing
human missions to the Moon this decade.
Even though the United States doesn’t have anything that can do the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs, we’ve got
two spacecraft leaving the Solar System and we’re building a
probe that will fly to the exterior layers of the Sun. We are discovering
hundreds of new planets in other star systems and building a much more
powerful successor to the Hubble Space Telescope that will see back to the early days of the universe.
We don’t have a Death Star, but we do have floating robot assistants on the Space Station, a President who knows his way around a light saber and advanced (marshmallow) cannon, and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which is supporting research on building Luke’s arm, floating droids, and quadruped walkers.
We are living in the future! Enjoy it. Or better yet, help build it
by pursuing a career in a science, technology, engineering or
math-related field. The President has held the first-ever White House science fairs and Astronomy Night on the South Lawn
because he knows these domains are critical to our country’s future,
and to ensuring the United States continues leading the world in doing
big things.
If you do pursue a career in a science, technology, engineering or
math-related field, the Force will be with us! Remember, the Death
Star’s power to destroy a planet, or even a whole star system, is
insignificant next to the power of the Force.