So, what would it actually take to build a Death Star?
Hey there, Crazies.
You may or may not have seen it before, but there’s this blog post from 2012
that asks a really fun question:
How Much Would It Cost To Build The Death Star?
They estimated it would cost about 850 quadrillion U.S. Dollars
and would take over 830,000 years just to produce the steel.
Well, that’s boring!
We can do better.
The blog assumed the Death Star’s density would be comparable to an aircraft carrier,
which might make sense if present day humans were building it,
but it was built by a Galactic Empire a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.
How can it be a long time ago if it’s in the future?
It’s not in the future, it’s in the past.
But there are spaceships.
Ugh.
Imagine a group of humans from the Star Wars galaxy want to live off-the-grid.
They venture out into intergalactic space in search of a new home.
Finally, they find a remote planet with a thriving ecosystem and settle down.
In an effort to shelter their children from woes of technology, they don’t pass on the
stories of where they came from.
Their history is forgotten.
That planet they settled on is Earth hundreds of thousands of years ago.
Just go with it!
OK, so back to the aircraft carrier, its hallways look like this.
Whereas, hallways on the Death Star look like this.
Way more room!!
They’re, like, twice as tall and 6 times as wide.
Huge!
The blog chose to use the HMS Illustrious, which has a mass of 22,000 metric tons and
a volume of about 28,600 cubic meters.
That’s over 1000 school buses worth of space.
The Death Star hallways are bigger, so it should be significantly less dense.
An average of 4 times as much radial space gives us 64x the volume
or 64 times less dense than the Illustrious: The first Death Star was 120 km across.
Are you quoting the technical manual again?
That’s not canon.
Star Wars Legends is the only place I can get my data!
So 120 km across means it has a radius of 60 km.
Here’s a size chart, just so you can get your bearings.
That’s a volume of 900 trillion cubic meters.
Multiplying by density, we get a mass of 11 trillion metric tons
or 11 quadrillion kg That’s enough to have a noticeable gravitational pull,
but not nearly enough to collapse and form a solid
steel sphere.
Now let’s estimate cost.
It’s really expensive to get things into space, even with a space elevator,
so let’s assume the steel was mined and produced in space from asteroids.
There a lot less gravity and a lot more iron.
The average cost of steel on Earth in 2016 is about $400 per metric ton.
The steel needed to make a Death Star would cost 4.4 quadrillion dollars.
about 57 times the current gross-world-product.
But that’s just the Earth.
A galactic empire is going to have a lot of planet, significantly more than 57,
so I think it’s safe to assume the wealth exists in the empire.
But how long will it all take?
In the Star Wars universe, they were beginning construction
at the end of Revenge of the Sith and finished just before A New Hope.
That’s about 19 years or so.
They’d need about 580 billion metric tons of steel each year just to finish on time.
Even with production rates like present-day Earth.
it would only take 350 planet-sized mining operations to produce the steel.
Totally reasonable for a galactic empire, especially if they produce faster.
Although, it’s getting a little harder to keep this a secret.
Anyway, one last thing to consider: the power source.
The Death Star is powered by Kyber Crystals.
The same thing they use for the light sabers, just way bigger.
Yes, but that needs a dose of science.
Turning a planet like the Earth into an asteroid field would take a lot of energy.
280 million trillion trillion joules to be exact.
That’s 57 billion times the total energy ever used by human beings
or 8.5 times the total energy output of the Sun per day
for one shot.
It’s no surprise the Death Star requires 24-hours to recharge.
That’s also not canon.
I don’t care!
OK, so back to the Kyber Crystals.
Whether they’re allowing for a stable anti-matter reaction,
or collecting Hawking radiation from evaporating micro-black holes,
or siphoning matter off the surface of a very large star like in Force Awakens.
That fuel will have a minimum mass of 3.1 quadrillion kg because E equals mc squared.
That’s a little under 1/3 of the mass of the steel needed to make the Death Star.
I think it’s safe to assume the crystals themselves don’t have that much mass.
The Death Star was already hard enough to move around as it was.
We don’t need to be making it any more massive.
We also know they’re not firing this thing from a different star system.
It could take anywhere from 5 to 100,000 years to reach its target.
So they must be collecting this mass-energy after they get to their destination
and then charging for 24 hours.
Wait a minute!
Why are we even bothering to move a whole space station around?!
By calling it a “station,” you’re saying you intend to keep it “stationary.”
Besides, a moon-sized steel ball is going to be difficult to hide for 24 hours.
Whose idea was this, anyway?!
Wouldn’t it just be easier to have the weapon separate from the station?
The weapon detaches from the Death Star goes wherever you need it to go,
grabs onto a nice big asteroid, takes 24-hours to turn its mass into usable energy,
and then fires.
The weapon can be small, so it’s easier to hide and it’s a lot more mobile.
At which point, why do you even need the station?
It’s a huge waste of time and money if all you’re trying to do is build a weapon.
So, do you think the Death Star was a good idea?
I’d like to hear your thoughts in the comments.
Thanks for liking and sharing this video.
And until next time, remember, it’s OK to be a little crazy.