Thursday, February 05, 2009

Have You Ever Wondered How Much It Would Cost To Build Your Own Death Star? Hint: I Didn't Even Know That Was A Real Number


From geekology, Let's face it, we all want our own Death Star. But how much would it actually cost to build one, today? Well, a lot. Try 15 septillion dollars. That's $15,602,022,489,829,821,422,840,226! Ladies and gentlemen, we may have to settle for the half-sized model.

(The Death Star has) a volume of 17.16 quadrillion cubic meters. At 1/10 volume, we'll need 1.71 Quadrillion cubic meters of steel, weighing in at 134 quadrillion tonnes. In 2008 steel products, from wire to ingots were selling for an average of $962 per tonne, so our cost of steel alone is $12.95 quintillion.
Now, how about getting that into space? According to the numbers I could find on the internet, it costs around $95 million to ship 1 tonne of materials into space, so that means we'll be cutting NASA a cheque for $12.79 septillion. (Remind me to order larger cheques from the bank please.)

Okay, so if we can cut out NASA we can basically save ourselves $13 septillion, dropping the total cost of a Death Star to a paltry $2 septillion. Now I think that's manageable folks -- so you start sending me your money, and I'll start building a strip club the rocketship.

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