How much did the Death Star cost and why is it important

A professor at the University of Washington in St. Louis calculated the cost of the Death Star from the Star Wars space saga and found that its destruction did not at all mean the victory of the Rebels.

Scientist Zachariah Fainstan, a professor at the University of Washington in St. Louis, has calculated the cost of the Death Star from the classic Star Wars trilogy. The researcher turned out academic report , which simulated the financial system of the galaxy. There were two stations in total: the first one was a working one, with a diameter of 164 kilometers with 400 thousandth personnel, droids and a powerful laser. The second is unfinished, which the economist did not include in the calculation.

As a basis, he took the price of one American aircraft carrier, adjusted for the fact that we are talking about a space object of planetary proportions. Drawing an analogy with the Manhattan project, Zachariah decided that the first version of the station cost customers 193 quintillion dollars, with GDP equal to 4.6 sextillion dollars. In order to make it clear how much this is: in the quintillion there are 18 zeros, and in the sextillion - 21 zeros.

But a more important aspect of Faynstan's work was modeling the economic system of the galaxy, which would allow the Empire to spend such enormous sums on the military industry. Based on information from the classical trilogy and information from fan sites, the scientist made the assumption that in a fictional galaxy there was a banking system with 60% of GDP. If all the banks, and this is about 1700 branches, invested part of their funds in the construction of the Death Star, then its destruction would entail incredible negative consequences.

After the explosion of the station and the death of Emperor Palpatine with Darth Vader, the galaxy would be swallowed up by a powerful default and a central government crisis. The Rebel Alliance that came to power would have to make huge investments in the financial system to stabilize it — about 20% of GDP. And since the disparate crowd of rebels did not have that much money, the galactic economy would plunge into a protracted period of depression. Most likely, Faystanstan summarizes, this would not allow the Republic to regain power, and the Imperials would finally be defeated.

Recall that the seventh episode of Star Wars, with the subtitle Awakening of Power, is coming out on December 17th. Probably, a new version of the Death Star appeared on the poster of the film, and in one of trailers - The use of its updated planet destruction system. We hope that the filmmakers did not begin to approach the financial component of the life of a fictional Galaxy with the same trepidation.