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.

University of Leicester

This is how Han Solo's jump to hyperspace is typically portrayed in the "Star Wars" movies....

In the "Star Wars" saga, the Millennium Falcon's jump to hyperspace is totally fictional — but if it could happen, some enterprising physics students in Britain say that it wouldn't look anything like the stretched-out beams of light shown on the movie screen. Instead, Han Solo would see a disc of bright light right in the middle of his windshield, representing the blue-shifted afterglow of the big bang. He'd also get a killer jolt of X-rays.

Those are the claims laid out in a paper on relativistic optics written by four physics students at the University of Leicester: Riley Connors, Katie Dexter, Joshua Argyle and Cameron Scoular. The paper is published in the university's Journal of Physics Special Topics.

The journal features scientific investigations into some of the more, um, unusual questions of physics. For example, could Batman really use his bat-cape to glide through the skies? (Yes, but the landing would almost certainly kill him.) Could James really use a flock of seagulls to carry a Giant Peach across the ocean, as described in Roald Dahl's classic children's book? (Maybe, but it would require 2,425,907 birds.)

The journal's aim is to give physics students in the last year of their four-year master's program some experience in writing scientific papers, while having a little fun in the process.

"A lot of the papers published in the journal are on subjects that are amusing, topical or a bit off-the-wall," University of Leicester physicist Mervyn Roy said today in a news release. "Our fourth-years are nothing if not creative! But to be a research physicist — in industry or academia — you need to show some imagination, to think outside the box, and this is certainly something that the module allows our students to practice."

University of Leicester

... But this is what Han Solo should actually see, based on calculations carried out by students at the University of Leicester.

In the case of the Millennium Falcon, the students point out that as the spaceship approached the speed of light, all the radiation coming from in front of the ship would be shifted increasingly toward the blue side of the spectrum due to the Doppler effect. Visible light from the stars would be seen as X-rays. Meanwhile, the cosmic microwave background radiation that permeated the universe in the wake of the big bang would be shifted into the visible-light spectrum, producing that bright disc of light.

"If the Millennium Falcon existed and really could travel that fast, sunglasses would certainly be advisable," Connors said. "On top of this, the ship would need something to protect the crew from harmful X-ray radiation."

The students calculated that the stellar X-rays would exert enormous pressure on the Millennium Falcon, comparable to that felt at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. That would push back on the ship, forcing it to slow down. Han Solo would thus have to bring even more energy to bear to make the jump to hyperspace.

Actually, Albert Einstein's theory of relativity dictates that Han would need an infinite amount of energy to accelerate to the speed of light — but we're talking science fiction here.

The students' paper doesn't provide a blueprint for a real-life Millennium Falcon; however, it could give filmmakers something to think about as they ramp up for the recently announced "Star Wars" sequels. "Perhaps Disney should take the physical implications of such high-speed travel into account in their forthcoming films," Dexter said.

More faster-than-light reality checks:

• Scientists actually voice hope for warp drive
• Warp speed? Slowing down could be a killer
• Einstein's math suggests faster-than-light travel

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.

20th Century Fox

The Death Star was a fearsome battle station in the Star Wars saga - but purely fictional.

The White House says building a Death Star would be an out-of-this-galaxy waste of money — not only because it's against government policy to blow up planets, but also because the United States already has access to a space station as well as a laser-wielding space robot.

Today's official statement on the Death Star issue, titled "This Isn't the Petition Response You're Looking For," was written by Paul Shawcross, chief of the science and space branch at the White House Office of Management and Budget. It comes in response to a "We the People" petition that called on the federal government to start building a "Star Wars"-style Death Star battle station by 2016.

"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," the petition read.

The petition garnered more than 25,000 online signatures within a month, partly due to a signing campaign that went viral on 4chan, Reddit and Twitter. Under the Obama administration's rules for the "We the People" program, that required the White House to come up with a reply.

Shawcross and his colleagues clearly rose to the challenge, with an essay that should satisfy the policy geeks as well as the "Star Wars" geeks. Here's the full text:

This Isn't the Petition Response You're Looking For
"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."

Update for 9:35 p.m. ET Jan. 11: The White House statement quickly sparked a Twitter response from Darth Vader himself: "A serious mistake, Mr. President. You can never have enough planet-sized lasers."

Update for 1:40 a.m. ET Jan. 12: NASA may brag about the space station and its laser-equipped Curiosity rover, but that's not enough, Death Star PR says in a Twitter update: "Until you put the laser and the space station together and start blowing up planets, you're not doing enough Science." 

Other spaced-out petitions:

• White House: No E.T. visits, no UFO cover-up
• Petition calls for development of nuclear rocket
• White House urged to build Starship Enterprise

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.