I've decided to do some soul searching these past few weeks. Nuclear Fusion is great, but what if we expand our borders a little bit? I mean who doesn't like the Star Wars series!? But in all seriousness I'm going to explain different aspects of science applied in Star Wars, from light sabers, to Darth Vader's bio-suit, and who can leave out the death star. While some of these things are a bit far fetched (Jar Jar Binks is one) technology seen in the movies is achievable today, and in some cases already achieved. If by the end of this series you don't think of me as an evil genius, than your likely in Neville Chamberlains company.
I'm going to start off with the Death Star, the most iconic weapon in American pop culture. The idea of building a massive battle station with the firepower to destroy a planet isn't so far fetched as it seems. Theoretically, it is possible, however not within the grasp of current technology, well at least for a super laser.
A study done by Lehigh University done in 2012 estimated that building the death star based alone on steel costs would be about $852 quadrillion dollars, and it would take roughly 833,315 years to make enough steel to start construction. Recently, a White House petition sprouted up to build the death star as an economic stimulus package. The petition garnered the 25,000 signatures necessary to force a white house response. The White House countered with the cost of 852 quadrillion, plus the 833,315 years of producing steel to begin construction. The White House added the moral argument that it doesn't support blowing up planets (I for one, am sick of Venus and wish it to go the way of the dinosaur) and the logical argument of producing a space station that can be blown up by a single star fighter. So by todays standards it can be built, just none of you will be alive to see it.
Now onto why we want this fella in the first place, because we want to blow stuff up and terrorize the universe. Lets face it, the creeps in Alpha Centauri don't have jack on our death star. The laser needed would need to be immensely powerful obviously, but how can it be achieved? And is there anything in the universe that powerful? Oh why yes, yes there is. Gamma ray bursts. When a massive star dies, and I mean MASSIVE. It collapses into a black hole, for active readers this is not a new concept, for new readers check earlier posts. Anyway, the energy from the star is then expelled from the collapsing star and pushed out in two directions, a lot like a tube of toothpaste. The energy forced out has the power to literally destroy anything in its path. And it will. Physicists estimate that if a gamma ray burst were to head toward Earth, it would take a fraction of a second to end us. At least in that regard it will be a very quick death. I wouldn't sweat that too much, the likelihood of that happening are 1 to several billion. Still I won't say its completely impossible...
Contrary to popular belief you can't just melt a planet, the mass will still be there and it will turn into a gas giant. You could try to break it into tiny pieces, but then there is still gravity. If you cut Earth in half, gravity will just bring the two halves back together. Both of these methods would cause extinction level fatalities but remember the goal here is to blow up a planet. But how do you do that? Using Gravity. If you want to destroy a planet you must scatter the mass of it so quickly its forces of gravity cannot overcome the process of pulling it apart. In order to do this you need to bring the planets mass up to escape velocity. But from there you can use math and calculus to determine just how much energy is needed to actually do the deed. I'll spare the details, because its a lot of math.
Where to get this energy still is another problem. Although the most likely would be through a large fusion reactor. If engineers can figure out to match the output of the sun, and keep the plasma within a vacuum safely, you have your death star laser. It would then be a matter of figuring out how to dispense the energy.
For those of you who have no idea what this might look like, let me enlighten you
And I just had to throw this famous scene in
For those of you who don't believe me, I find your lack of faith disturbing
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