Ross Rifle wrote:

Yeah it's the size of a planet, so it's kind of entirely impossible to build it on a...planet. And of course, the Empire has money from more than one world, so there ya go.

You know, that brings up a technical aspect of the DS I never considered before. Wouldn't something the size of a planet also have the gravity of a planet? And if so, wouldn't it throw off the orbit of Earth and anything else around it? I'm sure the Empire had some way around it (either via the Force or some whizz-bang gravity control technology), but for "practically" building it IRL...that would be a huge consideration.

GPFontaine wrote:

SoldierHawk wrote: Ross Rifle wrote: Yeah it's the size of a planet, so it's kind of entirely impossible to build it on a...planet. And of course, the Empire has money from more than one world, so there ya go. You know, that brings up a technical aspect of the DS I never considered before. Wouldn't something the size of a planet also have the gravity of a planet? And if so, wouldn't it throw off the orbit of Earth and anything else around it? I'm sure the Empire had some way around it (either via the Force or some whizz-bang gravity control technology), but for "practically" building it IRL...that would be a huge consideration. While it is large and most certainly has some form of gravitational field, it is not as dense as a planet or other celestial body. It also doesn't seem to have an orbit or rotation of it's own since it can have its main weapon directed on demand. What is interesting is that the Death Star does have simulated gravity inside it. I imagine that this creates an "Up and Down" rather than a "north and south" effect. The people at the bottom of the Death Star are still standing upright rather than upside down. What type of affect would simulated gravity have on external objects? So many questions...

Couple of excellent points I hadn't considered. I guess your last question there would depend on how far the "simulated" gravity extends. Is it limited to within the walls of the station, or does it reach out farther? I'm kind of assuming it stays within in the walls, since it would be hard to keep the guns/towers/etc on the outside if simulated gravity was pulling them in different directions. It would probably also end up smashing TIE fighters and X-wings into the station (depending on the power of the gravity vs the power of their thrusters.)

GPFontaine wrote:

SoldierHawk wrote: GPFontaine wrote: SoldierHawk wrote: Ross Rifle wrote: Yeah it's the size of a planet, so it's kind of entirely impossible to build it on a...planet. And of course, the Empire has money from more than one world, so there ya go. You know, that brings up a technical aspect of the DS I never considered before. Wouldn't something the size of a planet also have the gravity of a planet? And if so, wouldn't it throw off the orbit of Earth and anything else around it? I'm sure the Empire had some way around it (either via the Force or some whizz-bang gravity control technology), but for "practically" building it IRL...that would be a huge consideration. While it is large and most certainly has some form of gravitational field, it is not as dense as a planet or other celestial body. It also doesn't seem to have an orbit or rotation of it's own since it can have its main weapon directed on demand. What is interesting is that the Death Star does have simulated gravity inside it. I imagine that this creates an "Up and Down" rather than a "north and south" effect. The people at the bottom of the Death Star are still standing upright rather than upside down. What type of affect would simulated gravity have on external objects? So many questions... Well (and this is why I was wondering about the gravitational pull of the DS) I assume that to make something the size of a planet, that simulates the gravity of a planet so people can walk in it normally...it must have some kind of equivalent pull. Perhaps not in the same direction as a normal planet, since like you said its more than likely made so that everyone in the DS is "upright" no matter where they are. Still. I would think that if you bring that thing into a solar system, it would start screwing things up pretty badly. (Then again, maybe their laser has such a range that that never becomes an issue). Still, it would be amusing to know that the thing is so big its constantly pulling in asteroids and stuff. Especially if one of those asteroids happens to fall into the trench, and down the exhaust pipe...lmao Couple of excellent points I hadn't considered. I guess your last question there would depend on how far the "simulated" gravity extends. Is it limited to within the walls of the station, or does it reach out farther? I'm kind of assuming it stays within in the walls, since it would be hard to keep the guns/towers/etc on the outside if simulated gravity was pulling them in different directions. It would probably also end up smashing TIE fighters and X-wings into the station (depending on the power of the gravity vs the power of their thrusters.) No doubt, it is contained within the unit. But what type of weight would a room full of simulated gravity have?

[quote="Shut up, Dorn"]You know, one thing I thought star trek always had one thing on star wars in that you could find exactly how most of the ships are laid out and what room is what (I.E. Hacker's Guide to The Enterprise) somewhere. What's in the death star besides all the shit we saw in the movies? Where do the people live? Do they eat? What do the storm troopers look like underneath the helmet (since they are clones and are supposed to look the same)? Why is the writing in a completely different language?

I mean this in a simply curious way. It is something that has grated at me for a while.

Also, without a room by room layout of the death star, how can a cost be designated to it?[/quote

Well, the people in the article the OP posted were just giving a rough estimate based on its estimated size, using that to extrapolate the cost of materials and shooting them into space. I don't think he even calculated labor or anything.

And Cam, as far as I understand it, the DS is supposed to be a mobile space station. That planet destroying laser wouldn't do much to strike fear throughout the galaxy unless it was mobile. (Or had amazing range. Which is possible I suppose, but...)

GPFontaine wrote:

Tyop wrote: The Death Star wasn't really the size of a planet. According to Wookieepedia the Death Star I had a diameter of 160 km, while the Death Star II was more than five times that size with 900 km in diameter. Just so you have a feel for the numbers, our Moon has a diameter of 3500 km and the Earth is about 12700 km wide on the equator. As for gravity, I did some rough estimates. The gravitational acceleration on the surface of the first Death Star is in the ballpark of 0.03 m/s², that of the second Death Star is around 0.19 m/s². That's only accounting for natural gravity due to mass, not for any artificial gravity. For comparison, on the Moon we have a gravitational acceleration of 1.62 m/s² and, as we all know, the acceleration on Earth is 9.81 m/s². It also seems like the article about the cost has an error. The author used the diameter of 160 km to calculate the volume of the Death Star when he should have used the radius. So the real cost for the materials should be lower. This is awesome.

Seriously. Tyop wins lol.