The Death Star's Trash Compactor Was Hopelessly Impractical



The exposed thermal exhaust port wasn't the only design problem that the Death Star had. It was plagued by low flow toilets that didn't work, stereo circuits that melted because they weren't insulated from engine heat and, as Joshua Tyree explains, a worthless trash compactor. Here are just two of the reasons why the compactor was an utter failure:

2. Why do both walls of the trash compactor move towards each other, rather than employing a one-movable-wall system that would thus rely on the anchored stability, to say nothing of the strength, of the other, non-moving wall, to crush trash more effectively?

3. Why does the trash compactor compact trash so slowly, and with such difficulty, once the resistance of a thin metal rod is introduced? Surely metal Death Star pieces are one of the main items of trash in need of compacting. It thus stands to reason that the trash compactor should have been better designed to handle the problem of a skinny piece of metal. (And while I hate to be the sort of person who says I told you so, I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out that a one-movable-wall system would have improved performance.)


Link -via Jonah Goldberg | Image: Lucasfilm

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First, it is not a compacter, it's a smasher. It does not compact, it squeezes liquids out for reclamation by the death star's recyclers before dumping the hard materials into the next level of processing.
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