How Much Would it Cost To Build The Death Star

Under the category of things you don't need to know but might be the difference in winning or losing a game of championship jeopardy.
"If you had $15.6 septillion and 94 cents in your account, would you save the world from the economic crisis or build a Death Star, destroy the world, and move on to invade the galaxy?

A guy called Ryszard Gold—who probably is an alien villain from the Outer Rim planets and got a 49-point score in our Geek Social Aptitude Test—made the calculation of the most basic Death Star's price with current materials and space transport costs here on Earth. Here's a quick summary:

• First, assume that 1/10 of the 17.16 quadrillion cubic meters of the Death Star is something other than empty space and 6/10 of the total volume is pressurized space.
• That will require 1.71 quadrillion cubic meters of steel, about 134 quadrillion tonnes. That's $12.95 quintillion in current 2008 prices, and that's without counting strange alloys and elements.
• Shipping that to space will cost $95 million per tonne: So add $12.79 septillion in transport.
• Now you need to add air, which will require 8.23 quintillion cubic meters of Nitrogen, and 1.65 quintillion cubic meters of oxygen, for a total delivery cost of $2.81 septillions and $212.46 quintillion.

The total: $15,602,022,489,829,821,422,840,226.94.

Yes, that's a whooping 1.4 trillion times the current US Debt. Or a sightly more meaningful number: 124 trillion years of war in Iraq."

Read the whole thing here.

P.S. We do our best to provide useful information like this. Here are some links to prior posts about cool inventions and things you have to have, or think you do:

How to Make Hard Boiled Eggs
What Not to Do-Snakebites
The Cubicle Celebrates 40 Years
How Velcro Was Invented
My New Desk- I Have To Get One
London Restaurant Tries To Solve Gas Crisis
Who Wants To Buy An Artificial Foreskin
Untapped Sources of Energy
The Mangroomer
Business Cards That Will Get You Business
Medical Technology- The future is now
Inventions You have Got T0 Have(Includes the ladies urinal, toilet forehead support system and much more.)
The Nose Pouch

3 comments:

Mr Lady said...

Oh, that's divine.

Michael said...

Now, Jack, how much did Luke Skywalker's proton torpedo cost?

Or, to fair, how much to two squadrons of X- and Y-wing fighters cost?

Once we know that, we can do some real cost-benefit analysis.

Jack Steiner said...

Mr. Lady,

I thought so.

Michael,

Good questions. I'll get the team working on it right away.

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