It's obviously a great weapon to strike down your foes, but all that power has a price. If you've ever wondered just what that price might be, then you'd better check out this great article over on the economics blog Centives that goes into figuring out just how expensive the Death Star would be to build. The response might surprise you:
Of course, that's only the price of steel, what about building costs, electric, etc.? That's a big price to pay for a little intimidation and destruction.
Link Via The Daily What
at today's rate of steel production (1.3 billion tonnes annually), it would take 833,315 years to produce enough steel to begin work. So once someone notices what you're up to, you have to fend them off for 800 millennia before you have a chance to fight back. In context, it takes under an hour to get the steel for HMS Illustrious.
Oh, and the cost of the steel alone? At 2012 prices, about $852,000,000,000,000,000. Or roughly 13,000 times the world's GDP.
Of course, that's only the price of steel, what about building costs, electric, etc.? That's a big price to pay for a little intimidation and destruction.
Link Via The Daily What
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this assumes the Death Star is made on the planet Earth.. obviously, the raw materials came from another planet rich in them and was made with slave labor... (the slave women wearing steel bikinis, of course)
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You could use the force to take all of the materials and bend them to your will to create it or carve it out of a planet sized steel ball or it's completely fictional and physically implausible.
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