Lego UCS Death Star is 4,000 pieces of Star Wars bliss 09.02.2016 :: 11:14AM EST The 3,800-piece Death Star that Lego launched way back in 2008 was one of the most amazing sets they’ve ever released. Now they want to sell you an even better one. Feast your eyes on set number 75159, Lego geeks! This bad boy smashes through the 4,000 brick barrier and hits your wallet with all the planet-obliterating force of the Death Star’s superlaser. When it’s up for order, the UCS Death Star will go for $499.99. Yes, that’s a lot of money… but it’s pretty typical per-brick pricing for a licensed Lego set. Lego’s giving you plenty of bang for your buck, too. The UCS Death Star comes with a whopping 25 minifigs– that’s one more than the previous set and the new versions are wonderfully detailed.You get Luke and Han in both their default dress and their Stromtrooper disguises, and another Luke dressed for his showdown with Vader. You also get Vader himself, Obi-Wan, Leia, Chewbacca, R2D2, C-3PO, Emperor Palpatine, Grand Moff Tarkin, and a whole assortment of Death Star crewmen.
There are mixed feelings from Lego fans about the new set. Some feel that it’s far too similar to the original and that Lego missed an opportunity to do something really exciting with it. Others (like me) enjoy the minor tweaks and are glad that they’ve got a second chance to add a big-ass Lego Death Star to their collection. Outsiders, meanwhile, are screaming “$500 for a Lego set? Which side are you on? subscribe to our newsletter: Subscribing to a newsletter indicates your consent to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.Top 7 LEGO Star Wars Sets imageThe Star Wars franchise is undeniably the largest franchise in the world. It has a cult following that truly is unmatched. To go along with that, there are a lot of companies that license out the brand....Read More about Top 7 LEGO Star Wars SetsDeath Star™product_label_list_price_accessibility 45 Reviews123451FIND MORE PRODUCTS LIKE THISSpaceStar Wars™Win the battle for the Empire with the awesome Death Star! Death Star⢠Reviews - page 2
Inspired by this awesome estimation of the cost to build a Death Star. I won’t tell you their estimate; you will have to click the link to find out yourselves. Then there was a discussion I had with some friends. We came to the conclusion that the Lego Millennium Falcon was so cool because it was to the proper scale for Lego mini figs. No, we are not talking about the Millennium Falcon on the Lego store; this older one that they don’t sell anymore (the Ultimate version). Just like the Lego Falcon they made a Lego version of the Death Star, but it wasn’t to scale. Yes, they do make another version of the Death Star, but they don’t even try to pretend it is to scale. First, how big is the REAL Death Star? Well, there were two (Episode IV and Episode VI). Apparently, these two Death Stars were not the same size. According to Wookiepedia, the first Death Star had a diameter of 160 km. Need the dimensions of a mini fig? The internet is here for you. That site appears to say the height of a mini fig is 38.6 mm tall.
If I assume an average human height of 1.77 meters, this would mean the scale of the mini fig is: So, a to-scale Lego Death Star (first version) would be 0.022 times the diameter of the REAL Death Star. This would put the diameter of the Lego Death Star at 3.52 km. That’s a pretty big Lego model. This is what it would look like next to the world’s tallest buildings. (The tallest one is around 600 meters.) I told you it was huge. If the scale version of the Death Star came in a set, how many pieces would it have? The first question we need to answer (we will answer it together) is: what will be on the inside of the Lego Death Star? There will have to be some things in there to make it support the outside. Probably if you want a scale model of the Death Star, you want everything. Garbage compactor and all. So, assuming the inside of the model has structure I need to get an estimate for the density. Let’s go back to the Ultimate Millennium Falcon model. , the model has 5,195 pieces.
It has dimensions of 84 cm x 56 cm x 21 cm. If I assume this is rectangular-ish, I can determine the Lego piece-density: This is just an estimate, but one I am fairly happy with. Sure there are some large pieces in the Millennium Falcon model but there are also some small ones. I guess it is possible the Death Star would have a lower piece density (if it has more larger pieces). Using this density and the volume of the Ultimate Death Star model, I can get the number of pieces in the set. Maybe the Ultimate Death Star has more large pieces in the set. Let estimate there would be 1014 pieces in the set. Just to be safe. Really, I mean mass — but I like “weigh” in the title better. So, for this, I need the mass density of a Lego set. The Ultimate Millennium Falcon is listed at a shipping weight of 24.2 pounds. Of course this must include the box and the instructions, so maybe the pieces would weigh around 21 pounds (9.5 kg). This would give a mass density of 96.2 kg/m3.
Just a quick check on the Lego Death Star II, it has a mass density of about 85 kg/m3 — and it isn’t even complete. Let me just go with a density of 90 kg/m3. With this density (mass density) my Super Ultimate Lego Death Star will have a mass of: I don’t know what to say about the mass. This is going to be a stretch. But here is a graph of the price of different Lego sets as a function of the number of pieces (from a very old post): If I assume the function stays linear for up to 1015 pieces (which would be odd to not give some sort of large set discount), then I get about $0.098 USD per piece. So, for all the pieces this would cost about 9.8 x 1012 US dollars, yes almost 10 trillion dollars. Really, this is your only option if you want to build something like this. The biggest problem on the surface of the Earth would be supporting the thing. Suppose I build a base to hold it up that is about 0.3 km across. All of the weight of the Death Star would have to be supported on top of this.
This would be a compressive pressure of about 2.4 x 108 N/m2. Just for a comparison, granite (Engineering Toolbox) has a maximum compressive strength of 1.3 x 108 N/m2. So, we are talking about some structural failures here. If you put it in orbit, you don’t have to worry about this compressive strength problem. Also, you could move around to different parts of the model to build it. Here are some other questions that I didn’t get around to answering: That should keep you busy for a while. Oh, I noticed that a few more of the Lego Star Wars models were not to scale. This needs to be fixed. Just when you thought everything was over, it keeps going. What if this Lego set were indeed in orbit around the Earth? Low Earth orbit (with an altitude of 300 km). What would it look like? Well, first let me say that the angular size of the the moon is about 0.53 degrees. If this 3.52 km diameter radius object was in orbit, it would have an angular size of: So, it would appear bigger than the actual real moon.