Posted: 2004-11-19 07:45pm
What I don't get is why both authors decided that the sphere is 90% full of metal.
First, it's pretty clear from the flight through the interior that though these tunnels are comparatively finished, the interior is mostly empty space anyway.
Second, for the habitat regions: in a regular corridor setup, there would be a lot more than 90% empty space, especially if the non-bulkhead walls are not solid. Given the resonance of stormtroopers' stomping on some floors, this seems reasonable.
Third, the regular corridor setup seems to be frequently interrupted by large chasms, in both death stars.
Fourth, of the two blueprints for the DS2 that I've seen, one includes huge empty spaces for beam focusing, and the other had a large portion of its volume set aside for things that Palpatine deprioritized when he took over construction management -- like troop quarters and starship repair. He wanted that death star gun up and running. So the large mass they would have comprised simply wasn't yet installed.
Fifth, large amounts of fuel would be normally required for hyperspace travel and for destroying planets; the task the death star gun was assigned, of destroying capital ships, did not require such huge amounts of fuel, and it is reasonable to suppose that compared to its fuel capacity the station was practically running on fumes (though still capable of annihilating every single ship in the rebel fleet with its death star gun ten times).
So, I would estimate the density of either DS, but especially the second in its unfinished state, to be considerably less than what is cited in both cases.
On the other hand, in the second article, it ends up throwing most of that mass out and using an official source's figure for debris mass. Go figure.
First, it's pretty clear from the flight through the interior that though these tunnels are comparatively finished, the interior is mostly empty space anyway.
Second, for the habitat regions: in a regular corridor setup, there would be a lot more than 90% empty space, especially if the non-bulkhead walls are not solid. Given the resonance of stormtroopers' stomping on some floors, this seems reasonable.
Third, the regular corridor setup seems to be frequently interrupted by large chasms, in both death stars.
Fourth, of the two blueprints for the DS2 that I've seen, one includes huge empty spaces for beam focusing, and the other had a large portion of its volume set aside for things that Palpatine deprioritized when he took over construction management -- like troop quarters and starship repair. He wanted that death star gun up and running. So the large mass they would have comprised simply wasn't yet installed.
Fifth, large amounts of fuel would be normally required for hyperspace travel and for destroying planets; the task the death star gun was assigned, of destroying capital ships, did not require such huge amounts of fuel, and it is reasonable to suppose that compared to its fuel capacity the station was practically running on fumes (though still capable of annihilating every single ship in the rebel fleet with its death star gun ten times).
So, I would estimate the density of either DS, but especially the second in its unfinished state, to be considerably less than what is cited in both cases.
On the other hand, in the second article, it ends up throwing most of that mass out and using an official source's figure for debris mass. Go figure.
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