Recently, several publications tried to calculate the theoretical net worth of Batman and Iron Man, including what it would cost to maintain their lifestyles and develop those cool superhero gadgets.
In the real world, it would not be cheap by a long shot. On the other end of the geek spectrum, it’s hard to think of the Star Wars world in dollars and cents, because you never saw anyone carrying money around. But the website Centives.Net ran a pretty sweet story earlier this year speculating on the cost of the Death Star.
At the risk of sounding redundant, this wouldn’t be cheap by a long shot either, but playing along with this fun concept, I can definitely imagine Darth Vader being some greedy billionaire tycoon bastard.
In any case, here’s how Centives broke it all down. The first Death Star is reportedly 140km in diameter and is made of steel. “We decided to model the Death Star as having a similar density in steel as a modern warship,” the site continues.
Like building an aircraft carrier, the Death Star would obviously require a sh*tload of steel, and according to their calculations it would cost…brace yourself…$852 quadrillion – or roughly 13,000 times Earth’s GDP! Now okay, the Death Star is big, but that much money? Wouldn’t a few billion suffice?
Still, when you think about it, the Death Star is practically it’s own world, and when you think about the overhead, it would definitely cost a lot of money to be an evil ruler of the galaxy. It’s not just the construction of the Death Star. You’d also have to have a ton of weapons, you’d have a big payroll to meet every week, maintenance for the escape pods and trash compactor, and so on. You’d think a few billion could cover all this, right?
Then the thought flashes through your mind…if the Death Star cost that much, how much would the whole Star Wars universe cost? The tie-fighters, the light-sabers, and on and on. If only one component costs $852 quadrillion, I can only imagine what everything else would add up to. And to think George Lucas created it all for a mere $10 million the first time around.
