What the Galactic Empire knows about defense budgets

September 12, 2011 11:27 AM

Don’t Come to the Dark Side: Acquisition Lessons from a Galaxy Far, Far Away [PDF] would seem like ordinary Star Wars fanfic, if it wasn't published in the military's usually sober journal for defense aquisitions. The lessons for the Department of Defense seem quite real, however, especially given the $31 septillion cost of the Death Star, compared to the much cheaper x-wing.
posted by blahblahblah (66 comments total)

So Luke was a member of Al qaeda?
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 11:30 AM on September 12, 2011

So Luke was a member of Al qaeda?

And Dick Cheney was Emperor Palpatine.
posted by T.D. Strange at 11:35 AM on September 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

No, that was Lieberman.
posted by valkyryn at 11:37 AM on September 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

$31 septillion cost of the Death Star

But that's the old $8000 wrench problem! It's probably all R&D! And retooling factories and whatnot. I bet the second one was significantly cheaper.
posted by penduluum at 11:40 AM on September 12, 2011 [13 favorites]

Never dissect metaphors.
posted by Horselover Phattie at 11:41 AM on September 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

Independent contractors aren't cheap.
posted by b1tr0t at 11:45 AM on September 12, 2011 [3 favorites]

Sadly, the article will be laughed at and not learned from by 90% of the readership. The other 10% will be bribed by contractors.
posted by DU at 11:49 AM on September 12, 2011 [2 favorites]

Yes, yes, yes, we've heard it all before.

Those Death Stars - even if easily destroyed - can blow up entire planets causing huge disturbances in the Force. It's called the projection of power. It gets people's attention.

You just can't do that with an X-wing fighter.
posted by three blind mice at 11:50 AM on September 12, 2011 [5 favorites]

You just can't do that with an X-wing fighter.

Yeah, you need an Aluminum Falcon to provide cover.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 11:54 AM on September 12, 2011 [4 favorites]

tbm: You can render a planet uninhabitable with Star Destroyers and Super Star destroyers too, and a massive fleet of warships is far less vulnerable, and far more flexible.

"Quantity has a quality all it's own"
posted by Grimgrin at 11:59 AM on September 12, 2011 [2 favorites]

The lessons for the Department of Defense seem quite real, however, especially given the $31 septillion cost of the Death Star, compared to the much cheaper x-wing.

Confused. How can the lessons be real when the example is a fictional example?

Put me down as someone who thinks that in most cases, the comparison of a complex issue to a TV show or movie usually obscures more than it reveals.
posted by Ironmouth at 12:01 PM on September 12, 2011 [2 favorites]

If you want to extrapolate the US national debt, which inflates by an order of magnitude roughly every 20 years, the $15,602,022,489,829,821,422,840,226 figure should be rolling around by the middle of the 23rd century.
posted by crapmatic at 12:01 PM on September 12, 2011

> Put me down as someone who thinks that in most cases, the comparison of a complex issue to a TV show or movie usually obscures more than it reveals.

Wait, wait. How am I going to make pithy oversimplifications that make me look urbane and others ignorant then?
posted by Horselover Phattie at 12:03 PM on September 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

Also, on the number? I call shenanigans. They came up with a base cost of $15 septillion and doubled it for the total. But $12 septillion (four-fifths) of that came in shipping costs, and the figure for that was the $95 million per ton that we spend to get things into space. Using chemical rockets carrying about 1,300 tons a trip.

We're talking about a civilization with artificial gravity and well-developed zero-gravity mines. Ain't gonna cost that much. Even $15 septillion for the whole thing seems a bit on the high side.

And while that ain't chump change by any means, we're also talking about a government with a few dozen quadrillion citizens, at the minimum. So instead of the $47,000 per capita of debt that the US is currently sitting on, we're only looking at something in the $5-10k per capita range, possibly much less. Considering we spent something like that on various stimulus programs since 2008, spending all of that on a single defense program, while arguably inadvisable, seems a bit less far-fetched.

The lesson here seems to be "Single-planet civilizations cannot build artificial moons." Scale people.

/geekmode

More seriously, the defense contractor article has a point. Just because a civilization can scale to make a project that big financially feasible doesn't actually make it a decent idea. And really, sitting down and looking at the numbers makes one question whether, given how well the US seems to be doing, a society can even be said to exist on such a scale. Societies don't scale infinitely, or even all that well. The difference between a town of 1,000 and city of 500,000 and a country of 100,000,000 is not one of degree, but one of kind.

To focus more on point, I have a sense that the equipment, logistics, and organization of the US armed forces in 1940 might actually have been a lot better at fighting an asymmetrical war than our current army, which is so highly centralized, so deeply dependent upon technology, and so leveraged in terms of boots-on-the-ground to mission goals. And while things like F-22s and B-1s are cool, the cost of one of those could probably field several WWII-style divisions. Each of which is about 20% of our entire operation in Afghanistan. And we aren't fighting tanks or even vehicles most of the time, so a couple-ten thousand guys with M1s might actually make a pretty huge difference.
posted by valkyryn at 12:04 PM on September 12, 2011 [18 favorites]

If you're looking for a planet-killer, wouldn't it be easier to attach some thrusters to an asteroid? Same force-disturbing death from the skies, 1/100th the cost.
posted by leotrotsky at 12:11 PM on September 12, 2011 [6 favorites]

Reminds me of this.
posted by never used baby shoes at 12:11 PM on September 12, 2011

"There's your twenty billion, Brent! Drink it in!"
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 12:12 PM on September 12, 2011

If you're looking for a planet-killer, wouldn't it be easier to attach some thrusters to an asteroid? Same force-disturbing death from the skies, 1/100th the cost.


Oh please. We don't need another Bruce Willis movie.
posted by stormpooper at 12:15 PM on September 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

To focus more on point, I have a sense that the equipment, logistics, and organization of the US armed forces in 1940 might actually have been a lot better at fighting an asymmetrical war than our current army

We shall redouble our efforts.
posted by elizardbits at 12:15 PM on September 12, 2011 [6 favorites]

ObSmith:

"A construction job of that magnitude would require a helluva lot more manpower than the Imperial army had to offer. I’ll bet there were independent contractors working on that thing: plumbers, aluminum siders, roofers."
"Not just Imperials, is what you’re getting at…"
"Exactly. In order to get it built quickly and quietly they’d hire anybody who could do the job. Do you think the average storm trooper knows how to install a toilet main? All they know is killing and white uniforms."
"All right, so even if independent contractors are working on the Death Star, why are you uneasy with its destruction?"
"All those innocent contractors hired to do a job were killed – casualties of a war they had nothing to do with."
posted by pla at 12:16 PM on September 12, 2011 [7 favorites]

S.R. Hadden:       First rule in government spending: why build one 
                   when you can have two at twice the price? 

posted by ceribus peribus at 12:20 PM on September 12, 2011 [9 favorites]

You just can't do that with an X-wing fighter.

Question: How close to light speed can an X-wing reach.
Question #2: What's the mass of an X wing.

If we can get that X-Wing to .9 light, then every gram will release about 17 kilotons of energy when it hits the planet. Assuming the pilot masses 70kg, the Astromech Droid 25kg, and the fighter itself -- well, an F-16 masses 8500kg empty. Call it half that -- this is future technology (from a long long time ago wait what?)

So, roughly 4345kg, 17kt/g, that's 73,865,000 kilotons TNT equivalent, or near as doesn't matter 74 gigatons of energy.

Okay, you might need a few of them to destroy a planet, but it'll still much cheaper.
posted by eriko at 12:23 PM on September 12, 2011 [12 favorites]

Look, no one could have foreseen the events of the Battle of Yavin. The people who are complaining about it are the same one who said the surge wouldn't work -- and look how wrong they were about Hoth. The reality is, the rebellion is on the run, and the attack on the Death Star just shows how desperate they are. And if you don't like the job Haliburton did on building it, I guess you'd prefer to have you and your brother just whip up a Death Star in your backyard.

At any rate, this kind of talk just emboldens the Jedi. The stormtroopers have been dispatched.
posted by PlusDistance at 12:23 PM on September 12, 2011 [25 favorites]

> Question: How close to light speed can an X-wing reach.

Hey! Stop getting your science in my space opera!
posted by Horselover Phattie at 12:24 PM on September 12, 2011 [6 favorites]

Really, you can sum this article up in two sentences. Oh, wait, the author *did*.

In the Star Wars universe, robots are self- aware, every ship has its own gravity, Jedi Knights use the Force, tiny green Muppets are formidable warriors and a piece of junk like the Millennium Falcon can make the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs. But even the florid imagination of George Lucas could not envision a project like the Death Star coming in on time, on budget.

posted by eriko at 12:25 PM on September 12, 2011 [8 favorites]

Put me down as someone who thinks that in most cases, the comparison of a complex issue to a TV show or movie usually obscures more than it reveals.

Sometimes removing controversial issues from their real-life political context can be revealing.
posted by empath at 12:27 PM on September 12, 2011 [3 favorites]

You just can't do that with an X-wing fighter.

Question: How close to light speed can an X-wing reach.
Question #2: What's the mass of an X wing.

If we can get that X-Wing to .9 light, then every gram will release about 17 kilotons of energy when it hits the planet. Assuming the pilot masses 70kg, the Astromech Droid 25kg, and the fighter itself -- well, an F-16 masses 8500kg empty. Call it half that -- this is future technology (from a long long time ago wait what?)

So, roughly 4345kg, 17kt/g, that's 73,865,000 kilotons TNT equivalent, or near as doesn't matter 74 gigatons of energy.

Okay, you might need a few of them to destroy a planet, but it'll still much cheaper.

I doubt the X-wing travels any where near .9 c. Its FTL capability derives from the ability to enter another space and then exit that space many lightyears from the point where it entered the hyperspace.
posted by Ironmouth at 12:27 PM on September 12, 2011 [4 favorites]

I doubt the X-wing travels any where near .9 c.

How much thrust, how much fuel, how much time? No aerodrag in space.

And it's strongly implied in the movies that you do move through real space, at least briefly, to get to hyperspace, and that your path is still affected by real-world object.
posted by eriko at 12:30 PM on September 12, 2011

If you're looking for a planet-killer, wouldn't it be easier to attach some thrusters to an asteroid? Same force-disturbing death from the skies, 1/100th the cost.

Fighters and planet-based defense canon can easily defeat something like this. With forcefields, artillery capable of reaching near-space, fighter and fighter-bomber squadrons who can reach deep space, the only way to take on an advanced planet is to import your own planet, one that's better armed, armored and equipped. Hence the Deathstar - there's the planet-killer, true, but there's also the untold squadrons of TIE fighters and Star Destroyer escorts it supports. It's designed to conquer planetary systems, and to destroy the ones who refuse to stay conquered.

In both cases where the Empire created a mobile planet, the fight against the Deathstar was an all-or-nothing gamble against an existential threat. The Alliance needed to pit their entire strength against it, and still had to exploit a hidden weak spot they knew about but the Empire didn't to succeed.
posted by Slap*Happy at 12:33 PM on September 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

Sir Isaac Newton is the deadliest son of a bitch in space.
posted by kmz at 12:34 PM on September 12, 2011 [3 favorites]

Forget about asteroids, how about just building a giant magnifying glass, and position it between the planet and its sun?
posted by blue_beetle at 12:42 PM on September 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

a piece of junk like the Millennium Falcon can make the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs.

This bit of dialogue always used to bug me until I decided that it means that Star Wars technology means that ships fold space around them in order to achieve faster-than-light travel. Now it seems like a keen piece of economical writing.
posted by shakespeherian at 12:46 PM on September 12, 2011 [2 favorites]

I think they should just pelt the planet surface with Ewoks from NEO. Literally. Ought to have the same effect.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 12:47 PM on September 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

Previously in pop culture used to talk about SRS BZNS: Biological Warfare and the "Buffy Paradigm".
posted by kmz at 12:50 PM on September 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

a system as enormously complex as a Death Star is more than any program manager or senior architect can handle, no matter how high their midi-chlorian count is.

I've no idea how useful this article is, but I know I like it.
posted by yerfatma at 12:50 PM on September 12, 2011

All of ya'll are operating from a rational perspective, which is quite nice, but not the Emperor's goal. Absolute power was his goal and doing it in a cost effect manner wasn't the point. Assuming power was the point. So the Emperor didn't give a damn how much it cost, those numbers have no meaning except probably how to use the process to gain more power over people.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 12:51 PM on September 12, 2011

or some sort of force field generating satellite that can bend light rays as a giant magnifying glass would...
posted by stenseng at 12:51 PM on September 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

If you guys don't want to support our troops, why don't you get out? I'm sure you'd love to live with a bunch of teddy bears on a jungle planet where they don't have things like indoor plumbing or the Internet. Oh, you're still here? That's what I thought. The Empire: Love it or leave it.
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 12:54 PM on September 12, 2011 [8 favorites]

shakespeherian : This bit of dialogue always used to bug me until I decided that it means that Star Wars technology means that ships fold space around them in order to achieve faster-than-light travel. Now it seems like a keen piece of economical writing.

Huh, I always resolved the first-glance misuse of words by rationalizing that it meant Han just had balls of steel (and the Falcon could handle the stress) - By taking a shorter path through a cluster of black holes, he risked having the ship torn apart by tidal forces.

Your version sounds better, but I don't know that I like relying on suspension-of-disbelief quite so much just in the interpretation of a casually-uttered sentence. :)
posted by pla at 12:54 PM on September 12, 2011

But does it take into account Wookiee slave labor?
posted by hyperizer at 12:54 PM on September 12, 2011

Your version sounds better, but I don't know that I like relying on suspension-of-disbelief quite so much just in the interpretation of a casually-uttered sentence. :)

Well I think the obvious solution is that Lucas had no idea what a parsec was. But I willfully choose, for Han's sake, to believe that it makes sense.
posted by shakespeherian at 12:56 PM on September 12, 2011 [3 favorites]

So Luke was a member of Al qaeda?... And Dick Cheney was Emperor Palpatine.

Making George Bush Cheney's patsie: Jar-jar Binks.

I doubt the X-wing travels any where near .9 c. Its FTL capability derives from the ability to enter another space and then exit that space many lightyears from the point where it entered the hyperspace.

If you've got cheap artificial gravity and can manipulate inertia, as the Republic seems to do, acceleration to lightspeed is fairly trivial. A relativistic x-wing would make a big mess. Might not be a planet killer, but would probably be an ecosystem killer, similar to the dinosaur killer.
posted by bonehead at 1:15 PM on September 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

The Republic could have saved a lot of money by not including the artificial atmosphere that surrounds every X-Wing so that there's enough air present to allow the "pwee pwee" sound to be heard whenever the blasters are fired.
posted by Joey Michaels at 1:28 PM on September 12, 2011 [2 favorites]

Forget about asteroids, how about just building a giant magnifying glass, and position it between the planet and its sun?

How are you going to make a lens that large? There's no furnace big enough for that! I mean, can't we at least *try* and have a serious discussion about building a moon-sized space-based super weapon for once?
posted by Hoopo at 1:45 PM on September 12, 2011 [3 favorites]

Forget about asteroids, how about just building a giant magnifying glass, and position it between the planet and its sun?

What if we decide to go at night?
posted by hal9k at 1:49 PM on September 12, 2011 [2 favorites]

Forget about asteroids, how about just building a giant magnifying glass, and position it between the planet and its sun?

Yeah, I see only two obstacles to the plan: the building of the giant magnifying glass, and the positioning it between the planet and its sun.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 1:56 PM on September 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

If you're looking for a planet-killer, wouldn't it be easier to attach some thrusters to an asteroid? Same force-disturbing death from the skies, 1/100th the cost.

I'm not going to waste another moment of my time on conventional approaches like "Death Stars" and "steered asteroids". I've tried them all, and every single time, some secret agent infiltrates my base, or some spunky young kids get together and thwart me. Often, they dress up as my own guards and walk around my island fortresses completely unmolested!

It's absurd! Oh sure, when I catch them, I try to put them to death in all manner of creative ways; sharks, eels, crocodiles, and in one really spectacular pit, hedgehogs! The prickly points, oh God it was glorious... but I digress. Too often they get away before I get a chance to really watch them eaten, poisoned, ground up, etc. And frankly I'm tired of it all.

So I'm going unconventional. No more lasers or masers or deep seismic disruptor, no. They always cost a fortune, and never, ever work! Now I'm trying something different;

Summoning.

More specifically, the ancient gods from before time, the Old Hungry Ones who are only too happy to eat a fucking planet or two to make their point. Yeah, and the best part is that it's only costing me a few sacrifices here and there to open the bloodgates, which I will then send some "volunteers" through to lure the eternal masters and their legion of ravenous flesh reavers back through.

I've got a really good feeling about this plan. I've gone over my notes a dozen times, and honestly, I can't possibly see how this one can go wrong...
posted by quin at 1:58 PM on September 12, 2011 [3 favorites]

I wonder if these are the droids he's looking for. Then again, maybe not.

As for accelerating an X-Wing, they do have hyperdrives, and there are references to hyperspace collisions between vessels and planets having "catastrophic" consequences. Hyperdriving a squadron of X-Wings piloted by deprecated astromech droids sounds like a cost-effective way to deal with the Emperor's shiny new toys.
posted by Hylas at 2:02 PM on September 12, 2011

Great plan, boss! Hey - we should totally get a picture of you standing in front of the Bloodgate to put on your Facebook page. Yeah, that's good, that's good... maybe a bit closer, though. You can't really see the gate in this one. That's better. Maybe a little bit closer. A little bit closer. One more step back...

...oh, that's going to leave a stain!
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 2:05 PM on September 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

Yeah, and the best part is that it's only costing me a few sacrifices here and there to open the bloodgates, which I will then send some "volunteers" through to lure the eternal masters and their legion of ravenous flesh reavers back through.

Zuul, is that you?
posted by bonehead at 2:10 PM on September 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

It seems silly that there would be labor costs if they have sentient droids.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 2:12 PM on September 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

Meanwhile, on planet Earth: The $15 Million Budget Battle That May End Outer Solar System Exploration

How are we ever going to build our own Galactic Empire at this rate? What a bunch of half-witted, teabagging nerf-herders.
posted by homunculus at 2:12 PM on September 12, 2011 [4 favorites]

ricochet biscuit : Yeah, I see only two obstacles to the plan: the building of the giant magnifying glass, and the positioning it between the planet and its sun.

Because, y'know, death stars count as old-school tech that anyone with a roll of duct-tape and a spare moon could pull off, right? ;)

More seriously (for whatever that means in this context)...

For purely destructive purposes, you don't actually need a giant magnifying glass (complete with all the associated bothers of purity, weight and casting difficulties. A few million square miles of Fresnel lens would do the same job; and due to requiring essentially no thickness, can involve as little mass as the manufacturing processes available can produce.
posted by pla at 2:18 PM on September 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

It seems silly that there would be labor costs if they have sentient droids.

Unions IN SPAAAAAACE!
posted by AdamCSnider at 3:06 PM on September 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

The Republic could have saved a lot of money by not including the artificial atmosphere that surrounds every X-Wing so that there's enough air present to allow the "pwee pwee" sound to be heard whenever the blasters are fired.

I like the idea that part of ship piloting systems is a 3D audio capability that provides direction and distance via what amount to sound effects -- thus, the "sound" of a TIE Fighter isn't really in space, it's inside the cockpit of your X-Wing or whatever, providing a warning of the enemy's location.
posted by Celsius1414 at 3:32 PM on September 12, 2011 [6 favorites]

Hey thats a great idea Celsius1414, similar to how electric cars make a sound, audio feedback for the driver.

I don't know how to break this to you guys, but there is no death star. or X-wing. Or millenium falcon. sorry. its all pretend!
posted by marienbad at 3:46 PM on September 12, 2011

similar to how electric cars make a sound, audio feedback for the driver.

Not just electric cars, but luxury cars too. There was an infiniti that piped engine sounds into the stereo. And the BMW Z4 has a resonator that amplifies the exhaust note in the passenger area.
posted by b1tr0t at 3:51 PM on September 12, 2011

What a bunch of half-witted, teabagging nerf-herders.

Not me. I'm a scoundrel. There aren't enough of me in your life.
posted by obiwanwasabi at 4:28 PM on September 12, 2011

"Previously in pop culture used to talk about SRS BZNS: Biological Warfare and the "Buffy Paradigm"."
posted by kmz at 8:50 PM on September 12 [1 favorite +] [!]

I read a bit of that. The disection of Buffy was great but holy cow, then it turns into a manual for biochemical terrorism!
posted by marienbad at 4:29 PM on September 12, 2011

Nerfs don't herd themselves, you know.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 4:29 PM on September 12, 2011

I don't know how to break this to you guys, but there is no death star.

Well not ANYMORE. Jesus, didn't you watch the end of the movie?
posted by shakespeherian at 4:39 PM on September 12, 2011 [6 favorites]

!!!!SPOILER ALERT ^^^^!!!!
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 4:51 PM on September 12, 2011 [2 favorites]

"nerf herder" is a classist insult
posted by This, of course, alludes to you at 5:17 PM on September 12, 2011

And what about all those poor Gundarks with their ears torn off?
posted by Copronymus at 6:34 PM on September 12, 2011

I don't know how to break this to you guys, but there is no death star. or X-wing. Or millenium falcon. sorry. its all pretend!

Well, of course not. They were all long ago, in a galaxy far, far away.
posted by Celsius1414 at 7:16 PM on September 12, 2011 [2 favorites]

"nerf herder" is a classist insult

Paging David Brin...
posted by Celsius1414 at 7:18 PM on September 12, 2011