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As expensive as that steel may be to buy at first, destroying even one planet scatters many times that much metal in easily minable chunks from the planet's man
by maaku 15y ago
As expensive as that steel may be to buy at first, destroying even one planet scatters many times that much metal in easily minable chunks from the planet's mantle and core. It'd have one heck of a ROI without resorting to taxes or outright extortion.
- kijin 15y agoOnly if the destroyed planet has a large metallic core. The Earth is the densest planet in the solar system due to it metal content. Many small planets and large satellites are primarily made of rock and water ice instead. That would just cause the Death Star to rust.
- ZachPruckowski 15y agoOK, but there's like 20 million planets in the Star Wars galaxy or something. Plus large moons orbiting gas giants, etc. All you need is a few dozen solid-core planets that it's too much effort to terraform and you're making your money back.
- pavel_lishin 15y agoYou need oxygen to rust, and there's not that much of it in space.
- kijin 15y agoOops, forgot that. But H2O exposed to solar radiation tends to split into hydrogen and oxygen. That's how some scientists think Venus lost all its water. /excuse
- pavel_lishin 15y agoI thought about that; I still doubt that there would be a high enough concentration for rust to be a problem, when you compare it to everything else (ablation damage, radiation damage, tidal forces.) It would be like worrying about your rifle rusting while in a battle.
- kijin 15y agoAblation damage might not be a concern if everything is vaporized, i.e. turned into gas. Also, if you're getting bombarded with high-energy oxygen atoms, that's just called rusting! Anyway, it's all SF. BTW, new crazy idea: a weapon that propels high-energy oxygen atoms toward the enemy, instantly oxidizing the enemy's rifles. Enemy combatants might also get killed as a side effect. :)
- batista 15y agoEm, also who said that the Death Star isn't made from stainless steel, or has some anti-rust coating?
- NickPollard 15y agoIn the expanded universe canon, this is actually given as the back story for how many of the brightest scientists were convinced to work on the project - they were told it was a huge mining station for uninhabited worlds.