Why does it take 18 years to make the Deathstar v 1.0 (which you see is well underway in the 3rd episode), figuring Luke was about 18 when leaving tattoine, but it takes much less time to make the much LARGER Deth Star Pro in Return of the Jedi?
Hypotheses:
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The first one was a prototype, and it took longer to build it and work out the kinks when it was still new technology. Remember, there was an exhaust port that you could shoot at and blow up the entire moon sized battlefortress. Obviously, not a design that was fully through tout.
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The first one was built at a more leisurely pace, without any real urgency. The Rebellion was hardly ascendant, with a dinky fleet of ships and skulking around. The Death Star would ensure Imperial supremacy over any wayward worlds, but Palpatine had already been in power for quite some time without any real threat to his power base. No need for a galactic super weapon as anything other than a terror device. Once the rebs popped the first Death Star, however, the Empire faced a serious blow to morale and prestige, and they invested the resources required to build a newer, better Death Star even faster than before. There are few things more dangerous to a military culture than a stunning defeat that has resounding effects. Imagine Imperial morale if the Deat Star took decades to rebuild.
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Because Lucas is a hack writer, and it worked better that way.
Yeah, 1 and 2 are the standard answers. My friends and I also discussed the possibility that they were building a second Death Star after they’d completed the first, since it’d be handy to have more than one big enforcer–the galaxy’s a big place, after all.
Oh, and the big bit of “textual” evidence for #2 is where Darth Vader “encourages” the commander to rush construction of the next Death Star.
No need for R&D for the big gun, 2nd time around.
Nerd Alert: there must have been some, since it’s apparently surprsing that DS2’s superlaser can target ships, which are (obviously) much smaller targets than planets.
This is going entirely from memory, so if i’m wrong, which is quite likely, blame that.
There was a prototype, which was pretty much just the superlaser and a framework hull with engines, so it wasn’t that exactly. I think half the trouble was that the first Death Star took so long to build that by the time they started on the second advancements in shipbuilding and general techonology helped a lot. Add onto that that while it was significantly bigger (and beefed up anyway), they’d had experience in building a thing like that at that point.
But actually there’s a good reason that isn’t fanwanky at all - the second one just wasn’t finished. There’s the whole part of the film with Darth Vader threatening his troops with the Emperor coming because the thing was so hugely behind schedule. And while Palpatine claimed it was fully armed and operational, that pretty much just seems to have meant a) it does’t blow a fuse when you turn it on, and b) the weapons work. No mention of the engines and the apparent half the hull that’s not there during the attack in the film.
But yes, in the end, Lucas is something of a hack.
I think what was surprising was that it was operational, not that it could target ships: the intelligence indicated that the superlaser didn’t work yet.
One word.
Unions.
Are you thinking of the Tarkin, which was featured in the Marvel comics Star Wars series?
Two words:
Mandatory overtime.
The second one took longer because they had to install all those railings.
There was a prototype in the Jedi Academy trilogy. It was located at a secret R&D station headed up by Admiral Daala. I forget if the prototype was named, but I don’t think it was called the Tarkin.
Oh, and I figured I’d add, so it wasn’t a drive-by thread, that all this…I blame on Spike TV.
I still like the whole Clerks aspect of killing off all those sub-contractors.
http://www.whysanity.net/monos/clerks5.html
Given that the Empire knew exactly who was behind the Rebellion, and had for some time, I always wondered if Palpatine had done things slow to keep the Death Star secret (it didn’t work out, but it came close). After all, it might have been troublesome, but odds are he could have come up with a way to take out Alderan or whatever in the preceding 18 years. He probably wanted to do things slow so he could whip it out as a surprise Doomsday. 
This is a good point. After all, he kind of wanted the second one to be discovered, so he could triumphantly announce that it was fully operational after drawing the Rebels into a trap.
They just came out with a book, Death Star which may answer these questions, but my recollection is that at the end of Revenge of the Sith, there actually were two Death Stars on Tarkin’s screens…
In Star Wars: Episode IV, it was explicitly mentioned that the full takeover had just occurred; prior to that, Palpatine had still needed negotiate as regards financing for his pet projects.
The first one was a fully operational station with prison decks and all sorts of lovely things. The second one was, at the point at which we saw it, a floating weapons platform. To echo Revenant Threshold, fully operational didn’t mean fully completed. The frame was put up, it had a big ass gun, but it likely didn’t have flush toilets yet 
(And Lucas is a hack, but I’m a Star Wars fanwanker, so you didn’t hear that from me!)
I thought Luke was 15 when his aunt and uncle were killed.
No, but i’d forgotten about that one. The Tarkin was pretty much just the superlaser with an engine on the back, IIRC, much like Darksaber. No, the prototype Death Star was smaller than the other two but of the same general design - big globe, laser inside it, but just built up to show it could work rather than to be put to any use, as the Tarkin was.