How much would the Death Star cost to build?

Oh, I don't know, I could build one for $10.00 or $15.00 out of paper mache. Put candy in it and you'd have a Death Star pinata. :lol

Now, regarding the construction time of the Death Stars in the films, the first of ANY major prototype always takes much longer than the production copies that follow it, so I can totally understand how Death Star II got built more quickly. However, I do NOT think that the Empire started construction on it until after the destruction of Death Star I. That's a big galaxy to cover, you're telling me that ONE moon-sized space station is going to subdue all those systems? I'm sure that multiple Death Stars had to have been planned from the get-go and that Death Star II was already under construction even in ANH. They obviously found a way to increase fire power at some point, probably during the building of the first one, since a number of ways to improve anything are often discovered during the building of any prototype.

Now...COMMENCE PRIMARY IGNITION!!!!!!
 
I have to agree with Vermithrax, the Death Star doesn't exactly fly like a bat out of hell. More like that old guy in the fast lane driving 35 mph. with his turn signal on. You can't just make a jump to lightspeed in that thing and expect to travel from system to system destroying planets in a drunken joyride. There had to be plans for several to be built and deployed across the galaxy.

I did some searching and found this at theforce.net/swtc/ds/index.html:
At least one prototype Death Star was constructed at the secret weapons research facility within the perilous Maw black hole cluster near the Kessel system. Consisting of little more than an exposed frame with reactors, superlaser and propulsion systems, this prototype Death Star was never intended for active or sustained deployment. Facing attack by a New Republic task force seven years after the Battle of Endor, the staff of the Maw facility took the prototype and fled into the outside galaxy, with disasterous results. [Jedi Academy Trilogy]

Incomplete twin Death Stars were under construction in orbit around Imperial Centre at approximately the time of the Battle of Endor. Unfortuantely, it seems as if neither was ever completed far enough to be useful. It is unknown whether the Rebel Alliance was aware of the existence of these nascent battle stations when the attack on the Endor facility was planned. The rebels probably would not have had the audacity to assault the heavily fortifed Coruscant shipyards, even if they knew about these ominous constructions. As bait, these stations would be useless to the Emperor, and he would find little value in allowing the existence of these stations to be leaked to rebel spies, as he did for the Endor project. In any case they seem to have been abandoned and dismantled within months of the Emperor's fall. [The Illustrated STAR WARS Universe]

Darksabre: This vessel was a Death Star stripped down to its fundamentals: the main reactor and superlaser shaft. Its construction was commissioned eight years after the Battle of Endor by Durga the Hutt, who retained the services of the chief designer of the original Death Star, engineering genius Bevel Lemelisk [SW Tales #4, Darksaber]. Lemelisk had serious doubts about the quality of workmanship exhibited by the Hutt's construction crew. He escaped scant seconds before the destruction of his latest brain-child, and was taken into the custody of the New Republic. [Darksabre]
 
It was an idiot strategic investment, how many star destroyers and troops could you have had instead? Why blow up planets? Just nuke them until uninhabitable and move on.

But no, these guys were obsessed with having two big balls.
 
Yes, but there's also historical real-world precedent for devoting resources to "terror" weapons that actually aren't that strategically effective, or for dumping resources into projects that no longer meet your strategic needs.

Hitler focused the development of jets in the Luftwaffe not on the interceptors that he really needed (like the Me-262), but on long-range bombers (like the Ho-229). This after the offensive phase of the war for Nazi Germany was WELL over and they were being pounded by the 8th Air Force.

And wasn't Iraq or Iran dumping oodles of cash into a "supergun" that could launch shells into Israel?

Hell, you could even argue that "terror weapons" actually DO work. Look at the atomic bomb. That actually led Japan to surrender when the alternative would've been an invasion of the home islands.
 
The important thing is when you have a massive security design flaw on your gajillion credit deathticle that you enahance that design flaw to make it even worse the second time around.
 
But wasn't it an exhaust port on the first one? Don't you, like, have to have those? Try plugging up the exhaust pipe on your car and see what happens. I'm not saying your car will go Blooey, but you gotta let that stuff out somewhere...


Would kinda be like designing a person without a bootyhole!!:lol
 
If it must be vented directly, adding in regular intervals a strong screen mesh would have prevented fighters from entering the DSII. Or at least retractable screens for when fighters breach into the interior?
Something????

What were they thinking????
 
Well, they DID have this immense defense shield surrounding it while it was unfinished and vulnerable. As long as that existed the problem of protection was solved. Palpatine's mistake was his overconfidence in his own infallibility, he didn't anticipate the help that the brave 300 Ewoks gave to the rebel strike team. Had the Ewoks not been there to assist then the strike team would have failed just as he'd anticipated, the shield wouldn't have been deactivated and the Rebel fleet would have been wiped out. So the Emperor did have his bases covered...he just failed to take into account one crucial factor.
 
Yes, but there's also historical real-world precedent for devoting resources to "terror" weapons that actually aren't that strategically effective, or for dumping resources into projects that no longer meet your strategic needs.

I think you can go back even further than your examples to the middle ages with the developement of cannons.

Here was this massive tube that let out a tremendous thunderclap, belched fire and smoke and the next thing you knew your castle walls were coming down. Seeing as people in those days were much more, shall we say "superstitious" back then, a cannon going off must have scared the ever-loving bejeezus out of them!

Bigger and bigger cannons were built... because bigger is better right?

But... these cannons weren't exactly easy to manoeuver or lug to the battlefield (especially the bigger they were). And the chance of actually being hit by a cannonball wasn't very good- if you did get hit you simply didn't dodge fast enough.

However despite not being strategically sound, the mere sight of a cannon being hauled to the battelfield struck terror into the enemy so much as to make them retreat immediately. They were psychological weapons as much as physical.


I think this is the philosophy behind the Death Star. The mere mention of its name was to make the masses cower in fear. It was more of a deterrent.


Kevin
 
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How much?

As for paying for it, does the Dark Lord of the Sith have an ATM in his torso light brite? :D

What we saw at the end of ROTS may not have been the Death Star itself in production, but rather the DS testbed first introduced in the EU novels. But still, I imagine it would have taken more than a few tests to figure out how to fire a mega laser equipped station with enough power to destroy a planet. They had some plans to start with from the Geonosians (in AOTC), but plans only get you a start, not a finish.

Who knows, maybe they couldn't figure out how to cool the dang thing and had to build a small thermal exhaust port 2 meters wide right below a main port. SURELY nobody would find a way to shoot that afterall. ;)
 
I thought everyone knew the Death Star was designed and built by illegal alien Geonosians for a quarter of the price at twice the speed...course that would explain the corner cutting. i.e. exhaust port
 
Jim Duncan and his son-in-law Roger Simmons were in charge of the Death Star construction, which explains a lot of the cutting of corners. And a free beer to the first person to tell me why and what I'm referencing. :lol
 
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