As the launch date for Star Wars – The Force Awakens is rapidly approaching, more and more people are being swept up into the hype. And who better to talk about Star Wars than a NASA scientist. So, with the new movie just around the corner, check out this NASA engineer’s advice on building a Death Star.
- The estimated cost of building a Death Star with components from Earth is about $193 quintillion
- The ISS was built after 34 component delivery trips into outer space, each amounting to $450 million
- The total cost of the ISS is estimated to be around $100 billion
- Last month, Obama signed a treaty allowing for asteroid mining
- NASA is launching a mission in 2023 to land on an asteroid, collect samples, and redirect it in orbit around the moon
Swept up with the rest of the masses in the Star Wars – The Force Awakens hype, Brian Muirhead, chief engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, had a few words to say regarding the construction of a Death Star.
The NASA engineer suggests that the best way to build the Death Star and cut the construction costs significantly would be to try a different approach than to launch the components into orbit: using materials obtained from asteroid mining.
Brian Muirhead continues his statement, claiming that an asteroid would provide the metals, the water, and all the organic compounds needed for the construction of a Death Star.
He also continues to compare the mission scheduled for 2023, in which NASA astronauts will be required to land on an asteroid, inside an asteroid belt, and then redirect around the moon, with the daring asteroid field escape in The Empire Strikes Back.
In 2013, a petition on ‘We the people’ managed to gather over 25,000 signatures regarding the construction of a Death Star. The estimated cost was around $193 quintillion dollars, and the Obama administration had no choice but to respond to the tens of thousands of Americans.
Of course, the petition was turned down, not only due to the huge construction cost, but also due to the inutility of such a massive, planet-shattering weapon.
Even with someone from NASA offering advice on how to build the Death Star, it’s highly unlikely that one will be built during our lifetimes.
If you’re interested in what Brian Muirhead has to say, you can watch the video below.
Image source: Flickr
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