

The Death Star would't be that expensive - sutterbomb
http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2012/02/death-star-surprisingly-cost-effective-weapons-system

======
padobson
My problem with this article is that it seems to assume that every world
represented in the Galactic Republic has the same GDP as Earth.

I could agree with Coruscant being even an order of magnitude more productive
than Earth, but Tatooine or Geonosis seem to be more akin to the outer planets
in, say, Firefly (that's right, I'm mixing my scifi franchises).

Those planets are more than likely still behind present day Earth.

But, with the cannonical number of Star Wars planets being 1.24 million, they
still might be able to foot the bill.

I'm also a bit disappointed there was no technology multiple for the Galactic
economy. A society able to achieve something like alchemy (seems within reach
for the Galactic Republic) would be able to generate raw material like steel
at a very low cost.

I'm mostly thinking out loud here, but I'd say this whole concept needs more
brainpower poured into it.

Also, Hacker News should have a rule that we talk about Star Wars every
Friday.

~~~
Zimahl
> Also, Hacker News should have a rule that we talk about Star Wars every
> Friday.

Seconded.

------
graywh

        First off, the technology of the Star Wars universe is well in our future. How
        far into our future? Well, Star Trek is about 300 years in our future, and the
        technology of Star Wars is obviously well beyond that.
    

Well, ST has teleportation and SW does not. And I'm not sure the comparison is
so easy.

    
    
        Let's call it 500 years.
    

In the SW universe, galaxy-wide space travel has been around for millennia.

~~~
timwiseman
Yes, my impression is that Star Trek technology is well beyond Star Wars
technology in _most_ ways. Replicators and transporters have no equivalent in
Star Wars. Similarly, if we go to TNG and beyond, there is no comparison for
holodecks,a nd medical technology in Star Trek seems better.

But one area where SW has a huge advantage is travel speed. In expanded
universe material SW talks about travelling from the very edge of the Galaxy
to the core in a few weeks, and that fits nicely with the few vague references
in the movies. In Star Trek though it takes decades to go from the center of
just one quadrant of the galaxy to the center of another (Voyager was entirely
about that).

Also Star Wars has the force and Star Trek only has a few species with limited
telepathy (unless you count Q of course).

~~~
Jach
I decided some years ago that it really boils down to the name differences.
Star Wars outclasses Star Trek in firepower and speed by far, it's a warlike
place. Why launch a planetary invasion when one can just destroy the solar
primary? Star Trek has a ton of underutilized technologies, they could
optimize a lot but there's a general sense that the trek is more important
than the end result. (As just one example, the Federation being perfectly okay
with limiting warp speed to factor 5 when they found out warp was killing the
fabric of space-time.)

Then you have the various Stargate series, which fix up a lot of the
underutilization problems of Star Trek. Teleporting nukes into the enemy ship?
Of course! Replicators replicating ZPMs, a non-Deathist attitude toward life,
and in the late Universe series they had finally explored aliens that don't
speak English!

------
jaysonelliot
The main assumption that seems wrong to me is the idea that a massive energy
weapon is even a good idea when it comes to destroying planets.

All you really need is a big enough rock to throw at it (apologies to Robert
A. Heinlein).

A planetwide extinction event could be triggered with an asteroid just a
couple dozen km in diameter. With a really big rock, say 400km across, you
could boil off the oceans, according to Charles Cockell:
[http://books.google.com/books/about/Impossible_extinction.ht...](http://books.google.com/books/about/Impossible_extinction.html?id=v9VnZYj75DYC)

I imagine that even if a hyper-advanced Evil Empire wanted to vaporize a
planet completely, it would be more efficient to push it off its orbit and
into the sun than it would be to build a steel planet with a massive energy
beam. And that's still ignoring all the other problems physics has in store
for a planet-sized object that can be steered through space, enters other
solar systems, and gets close enough to a planet to blow it up.

~~~
jerf
In context, that is not true. In the Star Wars universe, planets have
planetary shields, which are extremely powerful and able to take a lot of
abuse. An asteroid strike is _wildly_ less powerful than what the Death Star
can inflict on a planet; ten+ of orders of magnitude, and I mean that fully
literally. An asteroid strike may be enough to wipe out an unprotected
civilization, but it hardly affects the planet underneath. The Death Star
delivered enough energy to the target to undo the entire binding energy of the
planet and completely disassemble it, _and_ do it quite quickly. That's the
difference between a very large nuclear strike, let's say 10^20J for roundness
[1], vs. the binding energy of a planet, call it 10^32J, plus a great deal
extra kinetic energy to blow the planet apart at a sufficient speed to satisfy
Hollywood's need for instant spectacle.

For that matter, the canon specifications for a single turbolaser strike are
on the order of what we'd associate with a very large nuclear event; if a
planetary shield can withstand sustained bombardment by multiple Star
Destroyers, moving an asteroid around isn't going to matter.

(One could discuss accelerating an asteroid to kinetic kill speeds, but if you
_can_ build a Death Star, it is certainly a lot easier to control and deploy.)

In real life, of course, with no plausible mechanism for anything like
"shields" to exist, you are of course correct. If you're patient one can
completely destroy all life on a planet with distressingly small investments
of energy not entirely dissimilar to what we could produce today.

[1]: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TNT_equivalent> , I'm spec'ing out a ~20
gigaton strike here.

[2]:
[http://scienceblogs.com/builtonfacts/2009/02/the_physics_of_...](http://scienceblogs.com/builtonfacts/2009/02/the_physics_of_the_death_star.php)

~~~
afterburner
You missed something: you can simply pulverize the asteroid with a ground
based laser cannon. No need for shields.

------
VonLipwig
If a Death Star takes a couple of decades of build wouldn't be obsolete by the
time its finished?

Also, I am not that into Star Wars but I understand that the Death Star is
big? Like a small planet right?

Wouldn't it just be cheaper to take a shovel to one of Saturn's moon. Mount a
giant cannon and nail on some fairly large booster engines?

I mean.. the whole idea of building a planet sized space craft from metal
seems silly when there are plenty of large space objects ready to be
commandeered and turned into very large space vessels. Should also be noted
that a moon has a long track record of surviving very large impacts. A metal
structure? Perhaps not so much.

~~~
ajuc
Even now, on Earth, we are using airplanes that were built decades ago. We are
also building new aeroplanes designed decades ago (F-16), that have only
electronic upgrades (avionics, radar, etc).

Most armed forces around the world consist of vehicles designed in '80 or '90.
And I think Death Star is more complicated than tank or plane.

~~~
timwiseman
When I served in the 82nd some of the NCOs told me that some of the vehicles
we used had seen service in Vietnam. I never verified this, but I did verify
that some of them were manufactured in the Vietnam era.

~~~
razzmataz
Did you serve while the Sheridan tanks were still being used? Those saw action
in 'Nam.

------
maaku
As expensive as that steel may be to buy at first, destroying even one planet
scatters many times that much metal in easily minable chunks from the planet's
mantle and core. It'd have one heck of a ROI without resorting to taxes or
outright extortion.

~~~
kijin
Only if the destroyed planet has a large metallic core. The Earth is the
densest planet in the solar system due to it metal content. Many small planets
and large satellites are primarily made of rock and water ice instead. That
would just cause the Death Star to rust.

~~~
pavel_lishin
You need oxygen to rust, and there's not that much of it in space.

~~~
kijin
Oops, forgot that. But H2O exposed to solar radiation tends to split into
hydrogen and oxygen. That's how some scientists think Venus lost all its
water. /excuse

~~~
pavel_lishin
I thought about that; I still doubt that there would be a high enough
concentration for rust to be a problem, when you compare it to everything else
(ablation damage, radiation damage, tidal forces.)

It would be like worrying about your rifle rusting while in a battle.

~~~
kijin
Ablation damage might not be a concern if everything is vaporized, i.e. turned
into gas. Also, if you're getting bombarded with high-energy oxygen atoms,
that's just called rusting! Anyway, it's all SF.

BTW, new crazy idea: a weapon that propels high-energy oxygen atoms toward the
enemy, instantly oxidizing the enemy's rifles. Enemy combatants might also get
killed as a side effect. :)

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zacharyvoase
I hate to be a pedant but Star Wars was actually set in the _past_...

~~~
dsr_
In a galaxy far, far away. Nobody in that movie is a human, so estimating
economics based on a few centuries of progress is as reasonable as anything
else. (Repulsors? Whatever-the-heck a lightsaber blade is? Hyperspace? Mystic
magic-wielders in robes? Star Wars is fantasy.)

------
zach
Just to let you guys know, Kevin Drum (the author) may be a political blogger
but he's a smart, incisive writer that I think most Hacker News readers can
appreciate even if you wouldn't otherwise visit the Mother Jones website.

I went to a _Jeopardy!_ audition six years ago where a contestant named Kevin
stated his occupation as "blogger". I chuckled to myself that "blogger" was
the new "unemployed" and then he described what he blogged about. Wait,
Kevin... Drum? I'd just read his blog a few days ago — that really _is_ his
job, I realized! He was obviously a sharp guy but unfortunately didn't made it
on the show. I caught up with him after the audition and he was very
personable and interested to know what other blogs I read. I introduced him to
Marginal Revolution, which was little-known at that time.

If your political interests line up, his blog is a good add to your feed
reader. Even if not, it's worth a visit for interesting graphs of the moment
and random non-political content such as these recent items:

[http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2012/02/chart-day-rise-
mac...](http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2012/02/chart-day-rise-machine)

[http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2012/02/federal-
benefits-a...](http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2012/02/federal-benefits-
able-bodied-workers)

[http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2012/02/people-have-
surpri...](http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2012/02/people-have-surprisingly-
strong-opinions-about-south-dakota)

[http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2012/02/better-grad-
studen...](http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2012/02/better-grad-students-
please)

[http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2012/02/my-memory-hazy-
fog...](http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2012/02/my-memory-hazy-fog-how-
about-yours)

------
ndefinite
From an economic standpoint it's not inflation you need to factor in it's the
reduction in cost of production over 500 years (assuming away any issues with
the time scale the author presents). Also known as deflation which is in fact
a good thing (sorry Chicago School, more for less is a good thing).

Over time advances in technology and increases in capital (capital defined as
production goods here not cash) tend to dramatically reduce the cost of
production.

Not to mention the insane decrease in the cost of raw materials once you start
collecting from asteroids (again assuming we're 500 years out and can build a
moon sized ship we can certainly snag an asteroid or two for materials).

~~~
openyogurt
Right. I thought it odd that the price of steel and labor would remain
constant for 500 years.

------
granitepail
I can't help but feel as though this article was a massive waste of time. I
know it's certainly not the point of the article to be thorough, but the
claims are all utterly baseless and not even remotely applicable to...
anything.

~~~
mechanical_fish
It's a Fermi problem:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_problem>

An absurdly whimsical and fairly basic Fermi problem, but, hey, why should
physicists and engineers hog all the fun?

As for the practical applications of this problem: Any game which a)
encourages people to estimate costs in terms of percentage of GDP and b) makes
the point that GDP per capita tends to grow over time is a useful educational
gambit.

~~~
ThaddeusQuay2
It's also a Kardashev problem, and a BDO, and kind of like Ringworld.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Dumb_Object>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ringworld>

~~~
mechanical_fish
/me hurriedly turns noprocrast back on

~~~
ThaddeusQuay2
Good idea. As a civilization, we're a bit behind on the big stuff. Personally,
I'm starting NUBE: Nerds United for a Better Earth. We'll use nanotech to turn
this planet into a death star, thereby mooting all of that space-related
effort. Why build ships when we can just make the planet go?

~~~
pavel_lishin
How do you plan on heating the planet and protecting it from space debris?

Let's just borrow a chapter from Ringworld, and move the Sun, dragging the
Earth along. I don't have enough napkins for a calculation, but it may be
possible to just trail the star as it clears debris ahead of us, while also
keeping us warm. (Naturally, the exhaust would have to be redirected around
Earth - I don't know if it would be easier to build something around the sun
to do this, or to place a shield around the planet.)

~~~
ThaddeusQuay2
How should I know any of that? I'm still busy designing NUBE's logo! Although,
if we were to have lunch at a place which was cognizant enough of our needs to
provide copious napkins, I would guess that one way to accomplish the goals of
which you speak, would be to accrete, around the Earth, a solid shell
consisting of asteroids, with plenty of space between the planet and the
shell. The planet's surface would be heated due to a combination of the heat
which escapes the core, and through the use of nuclear energy, in some
fashion, because both of those sources would be trapped by the shell. The
shell would obviously protect from space debris, and less obviously, due to
its thickness and density, it would protect from the radiation likely to be
encountered in deep space.

AsteroidShell = 3For1Deal!

~~~
pavel_lishin
If you live in NYC, I'd actually be glad to meet you for lunch.

But we MUST discuss this idea, using only napkins for paper.

~~~
ThaddeusQuay2
I live in Philadelphia, PA.

[http://idea-sandbox.com/blog/2007/11/cocktail-napkin-noteboo...](http://idea-
sandbox.com/blog/2007/11/cocktail-napkin-notebooks)

~~~
pavel_lishin
Dang, well, let me know if you come up here :P

------
LaGrange
The only issue is, the sun won't power economy that big:
[http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/07/can-economic-
gro...](http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/07/can-economic-growth-last/)

~~~
kijin
An empire that consists of 10,000 planets (as the article assumes) could
probably commandeer a few thousand stars for its energy needs.

------
wisty
Why calculate it based on volume? That's what the students did. Surely, the
Death Star is hollow, and surface area (times some thickness factor, because
it's probably thicker) would be better.

~~~
zanny
It isn't very hollow, the star wars nerd books I have read / seen about it
make it out to be a few thousand stories tall skyscraper built in the shape of
a sphere in space.

Only the reactor in the center and all the piping for the laser / exhaust is
open unused space for the most part. And the docking facilities for
spacecraft. Besides that it is office space living quarters etc. It is meant
to hold a million troops constantly.

~~~
wisty
OK, it might be better to come up with some scaling law. Frigates,
Battleships, and Carriers will have different volume/weight ratios.

------
badboy
So let's start some fundraising right now.

~~~
stevejalim
Kickstarter's first $852 quadrillion project?

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Craiggybear
Building a Death Star out of steel is probably as good an idea as building it
out of wood.

~~~
JanezStupar
I agree. The baddest weapon in universe certainly requires Unobtainium. And
with the current market prices of Unbotainium and availability forecasts the
way they are all the estimations are off by at least two orders of magnitude.

I mean one cannot compromise architecture. Thats why smart architects use
Unobtainium and Oracle databases if they are Software Architects.

------
ThaddeusQuay2
"Kevin Drum is a political blogger for Mother Jones."

Yes, politicians and the politically-oriented are those of us who best
understand space, the technologies required for use in it, and the costs
related to the same. They've already shown us the greatness of their
leadership abilities in this area of human endeavor. Sign me up for Death
Star, v0.9Beta.

