• About Geek Beat
  • Newsletter
  • Advertise
  • Contact
  • Login
  • Facebook
  • Google+
  • Instagram
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Geek Beat

One of the world’s most recognizable technology news brands, delivering daily tech news, tips, and reviews.

  • News
    • Apple
    • CES
    • Editor’s Choice
    • Google
    • How To’s
    • Microsoft
    • Music
    • Mobility
    • NABShow
    • Photography
  • Episodes
  • Reviews
  • Videos
  • Connect With Us
    • Chat Rooms
    • DropCams
    • Geek Beat Live!
    • Product Review Submissions
Home > News > The Cost to Build the Death Star

The Cost to Build the Death Star

February 28, 2012 By Theo Johnson

I’m sure the Empire and Darth Vader were pretty disappointed to see their precious Death Star blown to pieces, but one has to wonder how many galactic credits were blown on the building of this planet-destroying mega weapon.

Well, some Economics students at Lehigh University have done just that. They estimated the cost of the steel alone to be $852,000,000,000,000,000 (yes that’s quadrillion) and that it would take over 833,315 years to produce enough steel to get the project started.

While there aren’t many details on how they came up with this estimate, my favorite part of the post was reading through some of the 250+ comments. When discussions center around such an iconic movie, you’re bound to bring out fans from all walks of life, along with those who are willing to offer alternative suggestions (and corrections) regarding the cost of the Death Star. One commenter’s advice was:

A better method of estimating cost is to use a similar structure then scaling it to the new project. The closest structure to the Death Star is not an Invincible-class light aircraft carrier, rather a Nimitz-class supercarrier.

Thus, with rounding to make the calculations simpler:

Death Star: 1.0e15 tonnes
Nimitz Carrier: 1.0e5 tonnes

1 Death Star = 1.0e10

Nimitz Carriers Nimitz Carrier Cost = $4.5e9 ($4.5 Billion) or $45,000 per tonne

Death Star Cost = $4.5e9 * 1.0e10 = $4.5e19 = $45,000,000,000,000,000,000

Original Estimate: $852,000,000,000,000,000, about 50 times less than scaling a Nimitz Carrier.

This estimate is for the Death Star only and excludes support fighters and crew costs.

I thought this was a fun article and the students from Lehigh University have other posts like the Economics of the Bat Mobile and the Economics of Friends.

Is it worth building something that can so easily be destroyed (twice)? I’d have to go with ‘No’ because who or what would we use it on? We’ve already done away with Pluto. We can stand to lose another planet.

So what do you think? Yea or nay?


Source:
How Much Would it Cost to build the Death Star?

Filed Under: News Tagged With: movies, Star Wars

About Theo Johnson

I'm a full-time IT application developer, family guy, tech enthusiast, amateur photog and advocate of all things Google. I enjoy showing others how techology can be used to add to their quality of life. You can find me on Twitter @tjohnson3, Google or at the Dallas South News.

Comments

  1. KaLaMar says

    March 3, 2012 at 12:54 pm

    Wow, perhaps these students could have put their time to better use by calculating the cost to produce a Dyson Sphere. They would have achieved just as much, and at the same time, just as useless.

  2. Mike Fulton says

    February 28, 2012 at 2:41 pm

    Interesting, well-researched story that completely fails. The research is based around the idea that the construction costs can be compared to modern military shipbuilding, which really fails to consider even the most elemental aspects of the fictional universe in which the Death Star exists.

    First of all, keep in mind that you can (and MUST) assume that when they demonstrate certain technology in the Star Wars movies, what they’re showing isn’t the be-all and end-all of that technology. One use of technology almost always implies several others. In the Star Wars universe, the single most important technology that we have to consider is robotics.

    The materials for building something like the Death Star would not be obtained the same way we gather the steel for making a new aircraft carrier. The materials for a new Death Star would certainly be obtained mainly through the mining of small moons or asteroid belts.

    And that mining would largely be automated and done by droids. Remember droids? There are about six of them, on average, in any given frame of a Star Wars movie. A couple of droids that are programmed to do some material gathering and use some portion of the materials to make more droids will quickly give you a small army that will churn out enough metal to build anything you want.

    Since you really only need to start with a couple of droids… just enough to get the ball rolling, your startup costs for mining a lot of materials do not need to be very high.

    And as regards the actual construction of the Death Star, the same is true… most of it would (or could) be done by droids… maybe even the same army of droids that were used to do the mining. At the very least, you could disassemble that army and use the materials to create whatever different kind of droid you needed for construction. In fact, it’s really hard to imagine the need for human engineers for anything, given the sophistication of the droids demonstrated in the movies. (C-Threepio’s goofiness notwithstanding.)

    • Russ Jackson says

      February 29, 2012 at 3:14 pm

      It would be fascinating to see how much steel it would take to build all the droids in the star wars universe. 🙂

Popular Posts

  • How To Keep A Constant In Excel And Other Spreadsheets by Scott Ellis | posted on April 19, 2012 | under News, Tutorial
  • How to Use Your Own Router with AT&T U-verse by Chris Bramble | posted on February 17, 2014 | under News, Tutorial
  • The Complete Guide to Installing A PV (Photovoltaic) Solar Panel System by John P. | posted on September 9, 2013 | under Episodes
  • GSM, CDMA and LTE: A Guide to Mobile Network Standards by Benjamin J. Roethig | posted on March 4, 2013 | under News
  • How to Access Advanced Boot Options in Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, and Windows 8 by Robert Albury | posted on September 10, 2014 | under Tutorial
  • How To Add Sound and Voice to Your Photos by giovanni | posted on July 22, 2013 | under Episodes
  • How To Redirect Windows User Profile Data to a Different Location by Robert Albury | posted on November 14, 2014 | under Tutorial
  • Resetting the QNAP TVS-463 NAS by Robert Albury | posted on November 5, 2015 | under Tutorial
  • How To Scan and Convert Film Negatives to Digital for FREE! by Mark Zamora | posted on April 12, 2012 | under News, Tutorial
  • Tutorial: Configuring a QNAP Multimedia Station by Dexter | posted on March 28, 2014 | under Tutorial

Recent Posts

  • Go Mic Mobile Wireless System for Mobile Filmmakers
  • A RAY OF LIGHT
  • Keep Devices Charged Anywhere in the World with the Twist Plus World Charging Station
  • Final Leaked iPhone 7 Details Before The Big Event
  • Should Snapchat Be A Part of Your Digital Strategy?

Recent Comments

  • Ricardo Garza on Streambox Announces 360 Live Video Streaming to YouTube
  • Sunbya on Review: Blue Lola Headphones bring unparalleled quality
  • Jay Anderson on CES2016 – Autel Robotics X-Star Quadcopters
  • Scott Ellis on CES2016 – The Parrot DISCO – The Worlds First Fixed Wing Consumer Drone
  • Ricardo Garza on CES2016 – The Parrot DISCO – The Worlds First Fixed Wing Consumer Drone

Tags

3D Amazon Apple apps audio bluetooth business CE Line Shows 2013 CES computers fitness gadgets games gaming geek geek beat GeekBeat geek house Google health how-to ios john p. kickstarter Microsoft mobile Mobility Music nabshow new building Other photography Reviews robots Samsung social media speakers storage tech technology travel Tutorial vehicles video vlog

Copyright Livid Lobster, LLC · website design by @vsellis
search & social media consultant, giovanni gallucci