"WHEN FASCISM COMES TO AMERICA IT WILL BE WRAPPED IN THE FLAG
AND CARRYING A CROSS." -SINCLAIR LEWIS

Friday, February 6, 2009

The Cost Of Building A Death Star

Thinking about building your own planet-destroying space station? In this economy? Good luck getting approved for a loan this huge:

Add it all up, and we have a figure of exactly $15,602,022,489,829,821,422,840,226 and 94 cents. Tell you what, I’ll pitch in the 94 cents.

That is a lot of money. Wait, no that’s a disgustingly large sum of money.

How much exactly? $15 Septillion, I told you. But how can we conceive of that number? Well, the figures I could find for the World Economic Value were pretty general, around $14 Trillion USD. In other words, the DS would cost 1.11 TRILLION times the amount of money available in the world, that’s not even including the fact that the majority of that is digital and not physical.

How about something else? Say, how much is the Iraq war costing? You see all sorts of calculators out there, but one figure says $343 million per day, and that is a huge waste of money! But you know what? The Iraq war would have to last 124 TRILLION years, or 9,730 time the age of the UNIVERSE to equal the costs of building one measly Death Star. I mean, come now … it’s only one.
Bet you're glad you don't have to come up with that kind of cash, huh? And that's just the price for materials and delivery into space, ignoring things like cost of ground transportation, cost of construction in space, variety of material costs, time of construction and change of economy over time, gravitation effects, whether or not slave labour was used, etc. Managing this kind of project would definitely add some stress to your day:

14 comments:

Van Zan said...

I always saw the Death Star in terms of it being a vast port for the Imperial Starfleet, there being so much more economical ways of wiping out planetary life (the USA and a couple of others can already do that).
But of course I'm one of those people who tries to ignore how TIE fighters are making a roaring sound even though they are flying in a vacuum.

JBW said...

VZ, if TIE fighters didn't make a roaring sound flying through space you wouldn't know that they're being flown by the bad guys, as opposed to the pleasant, baritone hum of the Millennium Falcon.

Van Zan said...

Imagine the recruiting officer...

"Ok ... we call the place the Death Star... my doesn't that sound homey? No aliens including women or people who aren't white. No house plants. All instrumentation is blinking-for-no-particular-reason lights on grey panels. The whole place is designed for making new asteroid fields. If it gets blown up we make one twice as big, presumably to do in those really BIG planets, and instead of making the rebels do the dam busters thing we have all these conduits all leading directly to the main reactor, just to make it interesting."

Van Zan said...

On the other hand...
Short of the main reactor going up....it can't really catch fire.

JBW said...

True, not a lot of wood paneling and appointments on the Death Star. Steel is a lot more menacing.

JBW said...

VZ, I just caught a news story about the current hell on Earth going on in the land of thunder. You and yours doing OK, dude?

Joe "Truth 101" Kelly said...

Storm troopers in flannel uniforms would be scary. I think Ben Kenobi was wearing a Snuggie in brown earthtone also. Star Wars is always a good subject JBW. Thanks for keeping the boredom at bay waiting for nicer weather.

Laura Lee - Grace Explosion said...

I think the galaxy itself is a form of "death star". The center of the galaxy will be over earth December - winter solstace - 2012. At the center of the galaxy is a black hole. According to creationism... it may be possible that the planet since the time of Adam's fall (which would have knocked a "black hole" into the center of the galaxy) is perhaps 13,000 years old. It is time for the Matrix revolution to end, perhaps. Nostradamus prophesies or theorizes that the latter half of the Great Tribulation begins at this point of the alignment of the galaxy. The Mayan calendar ends in the year 2012.

It would seem the planet here may begin to be ripped and torn apart by the black hole's gravitational pull. I'm not quite sure, but incredible things happen at the very end and there are signs in the skies.

I believe the galaxy itself is it's own "death star" and the cost to us is...nothing... and will cost us... everything. We shall see. Winter solstace 2012 approaches. The 3 wise men saw the star in the East and knew that the Messiah had been born. The timing of all things is known by the stars if one has wisdom to read the times. I think, perhaps, Nostradamus did. We'll see.

Van Zan said...

To answer your question JBW... the fires are very close, but we are not under threat at this time. Thank you for asking.

We're in Victoria where the fires are. 35 confirmed dead at this point but there'll be more.
My partner is working code brown, which means her medical centre is stepped up as a crisis unit taking redirected casualties. She's asleep now, but going back on shift in a few hours.

I'm a little surprised it got international coverage, actually.
Local news here if you're interested:

http://www.theage.com.au/national/death-toll-rises-from-bushfires-20090208-80jv.html

Joe "Truth 101" Kelly said...

I don't envy you Van Zan. I had it easy this summer with the Mississippi River flooding. I just got my feet wet. That beats hell out of burning to death. I wish you well Brother.

Grace: you may not have noticed but in all the known pictures of Nostradamus, he is wearing a Snuggie. I think that and the original ShamWow were invented by Roger Bacon.

JBW said...

Grace, as always, you crazy girl.

VZ, glad you're good, brother. Stay safe.

T101, you have a serious Snuggie fetish, dude. Were you molested by a Jedi as a child?

Joe "Truth 101" Kelly said...

I was willingly molested by Princess Leia.

Van Zan said...

I first saw Star Wars when I was twelve. I had the most amazing fantasies about Princess Leia. Mind you the only other girl in the movie was Aunt Beru - eew.

JBW said...

I won't even tell you about some of the things I've wanted to do to Princess Leia over the years. And say what you want about Aunt Beru but she made some damn good blue milk.