DEATH STAR COST AND WORTH

Under construction

I'm loving all the excitement and attention that this Deat Star issue is having at the moment. It's funny and entertaining, just what some of us needed to escape the humdrum of "normal" life. Or to forget that obnoxious, idiotic and totally bastard boss that you have. Who, me? You talking to me?

Anyway, the story as we know started due to a petition that some 30 thousand United States citizen filed to their government to have the government spend a gazilion dollars (which they don't have by the way) to build an actual Death Star like the one from the Star Wars movies. The government of course turned them down, politely and with some humour.

So what was the cost of making this thing? Well Students at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania have calculated that it would cost over $852,000,000,000,000,000 (or $852 quadrillion dollars) just to buy the 1.08×10¹⁵ tonnes of steel needed to build a Death Star. That’s more than 13,000 times our entire planet’s GDP.

We actually have enough iron inside the Earth to build around 2 million Death Stars, of course you'd have to remove quite a bit of that steel from the Earth's core which none of us would like you to do (something to do with screwing up the magnetic field and then getting toasted by the Sun).

Lehigh’s students also estimate that at Earth’s current rate of steel production (1.3 billion tonnes per annum), it would take a mere 833,315 years to produce enough steel to begin work. So best start now.

Is it worth the effort and cost?

According to the Death Star PR Department (yes, they actually have a PR department) yes it is. TOTALLY WORTH IT. And here's why:

It pays for itself.
“But that astronomically large figure doesn’t even factor in energy and labour costs, to name but a few. How could something that expensive possibly pay for itself?” we hear you ask. EASILY, that’s how, imaginary question-asker. Once you’ve built yourself a Death Star, you travel around the galaxy and point your $852 quadrillion megalaser at other people’s planets. You’ll be surprised how quickly and COMPLETELY OF THEIR OWN FREE WILL they offer to help cover your costs.

It’s cool.
Is there a cooler, more bad ass, more famous super weapon in the entire universe? No. Can you really put a price on cool? Yes, probably. But for the purposes of our argument? NO. Absolutely not. Unless the price you’re talking about is $852 quadrillion dollars. Plus, you get to say, “We blow up planets now. Blowing up planets is cool.”

The PR Department has more great reasons for building the Death Star and some of them are pretty convincing. I would suggest you to hyperjump on there and see for yourself. It's not too late to start saving now. We've got a long long way to go.

Hyperjump here.