Based on the 2012 price of iron, the Death Star would cost $852 quadrillion, planet-killing death ray optional.
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"$852 quadrillion? Do I look like I have that kind of money?" Darth Vader reacts in a scene from "Star Wars V: The Empire Strikes Back." A student project at Lehigh University estimated it would cost $852 quadrillion to build the Imperial Death Star
In case you've ever wondered, in the 8 billion times over the last 30-plus years that you've been exposed to any one of the six Star Wars films, Star Wars cartoons or Star Wars merchandise, exactly how much would it cost and how long would it take to build your own Death Star, some economics students at Lehigh University have done all the heavy lifting for you.
According to a post on Centives, an economics blog run by students at Lehigh University, building a Death Star would cost about $852,000,000,000,000,000.
That price, they note, is based upon the 2012 price of iron, and it apparently does not take into account the cost of fitting it with computers, death rays, staffing it with sufficient numbers of big-helmeted personnel or fixing the original design flaw in the exhaust ports that allowed a single torpedo from a single X-wing fighter to blow the main reactor. But I digress.
Incidentally, any number with 15 zeros in it is considered a quadrillion. Also worth noting, $852 quadrillion is about 13,000 times the total gross domestic product, or GDP, of every country on Earth.
Also, the Lehigh students also calculated that based on the current levels of total iron production in the world, it would take 833,315 years to cobble together the 1 quadrillion tons of iron needed to build the Death Star. So, you'd better get a good night's sleep before you get started.
Taken together, it does explain why Darth Vader seems so angry at the end of "Star Wars IV: A New Hope" (or what people over a certain age call just plain "Star Wars"). Force or no force, $852 quadrillion is a lot of dough even on an evil Sith Lord's salary.
It doesn't, however, explain how the Empire was able to reconstruct the Death Star (and fix that pesky design flaw) in the 6 years between "Star Wars IV" and "Star Wars VI: The Return of the Jedi."
