Why Building A Death Star Is Just Not Worth It

The Washington Post:

I wish to address the most important policy question of the millennium: Should we build a Death Star? This debate picked up this year after some Lehigh University students estimated that just the steel for a Death Star would cost $852 quadrillion, or 13,000 times the current GDP of the Earth.

Read the whole story at The Washington Post

Comments

[Warren Yuill]

12:26 PM on 05/11/2012

It wont be made of steel.
It will be made out of ceramic composites harvested from nearby asteroids.
Steel would cost too much to get into orbit.
Duh!

[authorized-user]

10:05 AM on 05/11/2012

Your death star is called Fannie Mae.
It's the biggest black hole known to man
Check out their motto; Abandon all hope ye who enter here.

[cdchicago]

02:07 PM on 05/10/2012

Building a death star is highly irrational. That is why some one like the empirer would comission someone like Darth Vadar to do it. If cost or labor were an issue, thevconstant turn overnin management would have been a concern. They used slave labor and robots. More an issue is what dobyou do with it once you build it as we have no current targets. Frankly, no matter how big it is, you will never find a meeting room available anyway. Next time, put them to work on building the Ring World. It has a practical use.

[Glass Cannon]

12:15 PM on 05/10/2012

How about just a death moon? Like Phobos size. You'd save money and think of all those floors you would not have to wax.

[gurke75]

10:12 AM on 05/10/2012

Not worth it?!?

I find your lack of faith disturbing...

C'mon! A Death Star would be a great investment!

Just make sure to cover all exhaust vents and/or any other clearly marked and easily reached (well, at least reachable within an exciting 20 - 40 minute timeframe, speckled with awkward dialog, walking carpets, Princess committees, and an assortment of dastardly evil-doers and do-gooders) self-destruct buttons and/or other conveniently overlooked means to destroy said Death Star.

So build it!

I'll even contribute to it. $2. Cash.

[whitemale08]

09:57 AM on 05/10/2012

Everything you saw in Star Wars proves that "money" was not the obstacle only the will do build it or not.

Money is not "precious", it's not found in a pot-of-gold, it simply is a means-of-exchange agreed upon a community known as a sovereign nation.

When that sovereign nation agrees what it will use that "measure" to buy goods-n-services then it can credit itself without bounds and limits to complete whatever project they decide.

The only limit they have is the number of available skilled workers and the level of technologies.

[Glass Cannon]

12:16 PM on 05/10/2012

There is no try. There is only do, or do not.

That said, if you couldn't instantly obliterate a planet, at least it would be a cool hotel. Right Mr. Branson?

[MJinCanada]

04:51 PM on 05/10/2012

Well, there's also available resources.

For that reason, interstellar space travel is impractical until we can actually build the ships in Earth or Mars orbit, having acquired enough resources from asteroids. Until FTL is developed (unlikely, Captain), any space shipyards and ships would have to be massive enough to contain a viable ecosystem.