# How much would it cost to build the Death Star? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 28, 2008, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-would-it-cost-to-build-the-death-star/474822 "2008-11-28T18:13:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2008, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-would-it-cost-to-build-the-death-star/474822/61 "2008-12-01T16:38:12Z")
How much would it cost the Ancient Romans to build an Empire State Building? They couldn’t do it with all the money on the planet. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2008, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-would-it-cost-to-build-the-death-star/474822/62 "2008-12-01T17:52:19Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > The Star Wars universe, as well as most other sci-fi universes, seem to have amazingly cheap and reliable artificial gravity. Whether the generators are on very floor, or it’s part of some shipwide gravity/anti-intertia field, is hard to say. Similar effects are to be found in Star Trek, or even in less advanced-looking universes; in “Battlestar Galactica,” where they don’t even have beam weapons, artificial gravity is not only easily had, but it never breaks down, even when the ship has lost many other key systems. Loss of artificial gravity has bene used to effect a few times in “Star Trek” but it’s pretty clearly indicated that this is considered a catastrophic event and would happen only if the ship is utterly crippled, and sometimes not even then; many ships that are otherwise on the brink of falling apart still have their artificial gravity (cf. Wrath of Khan, Star Trek IV, and others.) Artificial gravity seems to be the ship’s #1 systemic priority. If you listen closely to the background chatter on the first few episodes of ST:TOS, you’ll hear a nerdy sounding guy saying “gravity is down to point 8.” But in general, even in written sf, it is easier and faster to ignore the problem. 2001 is about the only real sf movie that actually cares about this. > [@](#): > > It also seems trivially easy for ships to overcome planetary gravity; the Falcon, and other spacecraft like an X-Wing fighter, are seen leaving large planets in a matter of moments at various points in Star Wars. In Star Trek, the original Enterprise was actually built on Earth. Civilian ships seem to have no problem leaving a planet’s surface in “Battlestar Galactica.” > > \*\*Gravity has apparently been more or less defeated in our sci-fi universes. \*\* If that’s true, getting the material off a planet is not an issue. Not only does the Falcon leave quickly, but its engines are laughably tiny for its speed. Ditto the shuttlecraft in ST. In fact, artificial gravity - both to give one g under no acceleration and to counteract the massive accelerations all these ships are capable of, must use the same technology as tractor and pressor beams. I’ve tried to work out a lot of these issues for a book, and decided that lots of little gravity generators in all floors was the only practical solution. However that doesn’t work for the case in point, since unless there is a no gravity zone in the walls (and no one floats in the DS going through a door) why isn’t the structural loading on internal members the same as it would be on earth? Dealing with the problems of artificial gravity would make an excellent Analog story. Probably a funny one too if you had the characters make a lot of mistakes. ---
**Author:** ![Sir\_T-Cups](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ed655f/32.png) [@Sir\_T-Cups](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sir_T-Cups)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2008, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-would-it-cost-to-build-the-death-star/474822/63 "2008-12-01T21:37:42Z")
> [@Acid\_Lamp](#): > > We got it, along with your user name, it just wasn’t that funny. harsh… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-would-it-cost-to-build-the-death-star/474822.md?page=3)