If you’re of a particular pathological bent, it’s entirely possible that at some point over the past 30 years you’ve found yourself pondering how much it would cost to build the Death Star from Star Wars.
In case you’re wondering… yes, that definitely qualifies you for GA (Geeks Anonymous) meetings. But never fear, when it comes to geekdom, there’s always someone weirder than you.
Gadget blog Gizmodo is reporting news (yes, it’s certainly news) that one Ryszard Gold went a step further than merely pondering how much a Death Star would cost to build – he calculated it. With an extremely large abacus.
Gold’s price to construct the most basic Death Star, factoring in current materials and space transport costs: 15.6 septillion US dollars.
That’s: US$15,602,022,489,829,821,422,840,226.94.
And 94 cents. Why not?
I’ll let you explore the mind-numbing details if you wish. But another interesting observation here is that US$15.6 septillion is 1.4 trillion times the US national debt.
America has pulled itself out of economic gloom once before by embarking on large public works projects. Construction of a Death Star in 2009 would make the Hoover Dam project of the 1930s look like Sunday brunch.
Now it just needs a new name… Freedom Orb? The Pentagon? Dick Cheney’s Vice Presidential Library?
Image: Gizmodo
