The student theorised that he could calculate the energy required for The Death Star to destroy a planet. But was that a non-specular dark coloured planet with little cloud cover like Tattooine or a specular, reflective planet with plenty of cloud cover like Alderaan?
I'd like to point out that the planet Alderaan had a specular surface which would have deflected a portion of the Death Star's laser energy. It was also a cloudy day at the point of impact (see pic) and as we all know, 532nm laser wavelengths are not easily absorbed by such a light surface colour.
Alderaan was a Specular planet with a reflective cloud cover which should have deflected much of the laser energy.
Since we know that Alderaan was the first planet for the Death Star's Primary Weapon to be tested on, we can only assume that they gave it more power than needed in order to do the job. Essentially, they needed to have erred on the side of caution.
Tattooine was a reddish-earth-toned planted with no cloud cover to help deflect the 532nm laser light from the Primary Weapon of the Death Star. It would have absorbed the energy more effectively.
But what happens when your laser outputs more power than it's conversion crystals and lenses are rated to allow for? We know that from Star Wars Canon, power cells and crystals fuel the lightsabers so it makes sense to assume that similar energies were required from the main reactor aboard the Death Star to generate the power for the lasers.
Since the Death Star was essentially an untested prototype with more power than it actually needed and it was flown by a crew who were inexperienced with such a spacecraft or it's weapons in the past, it is logical to assume that the same crew/machinery/electronics/defect ratio would have existed at the time of the Death Star's manufacture.
A Death Star user bickers amongs his peers over the pro's and con's of using his new laser in the public environment against FDA approval.
So they fire their main guns and demolish a planet. Clearly they didn't have to do this, they were just having fun with their new toy and wanted something to write about in the Forums. But I propose that the use of the primary weapons with an untested armament by an inexperienced crew would have damaged the lensing array. Would they have overlooked such a flaw in the design? Of couse! It was one of a series of flaws that allowed the Death Star to be destroyed at the end of the film by Rebels "Exploiting a weakenss and flaw in the station's design."
Rebel Pilots argue the merits of the Death Star's flawed design. Clearly there was no return policy or after-sales-service available at the time. Then again, this all took place a long time ago...
In the end, Luke Skywalker (a whiny redneck) destroys the Death Star with two very well placed Photon torpedos fired into the "Small exhaust Port, right below the main port", triggering a reaction that destroys the main reactor and destroy's the Death Star. Right? Not necessarily!
Luke is basically an idiot.
* He get's walked all over by his cranky uncle.
* He picks a dud robot that the jawa's are pushing and get's ripped off.
* He's tricked by a "stupid" Robot (R2D2) - which is also considered to be an imbecille by other robots - into removing it's restraining bolt.
* He gets mugged for spare parts by the Sand People.
* He offends the bartender (Mod) by bringing in droids.
* He's so dumb that on his first trip to mos Eisley, he gets into a fight where some guy looses an arm due to a laser. Luke picked the fight.
* He get's ripped off when he sells his landspeeder to gather funds for his trip into space.
* He stands in the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon and exclaims: "What's that flashing?!!" before getting warned off by the pilot trying to save their skins.
* Ben tells Luke that The Force gives him control over weak minds. When Ben suffers accute laser injury playing with his handheld laser with one of his former students, he tells Luke "Run, Luke Run!" and Luke runs away! This proves that he's feeble minded - based on Ben's earlier explaination/statement.
* Luke argues with experienced combat veteran pilots about the odds of success when he's never flown a spacecraft before in his life.
* Luke fails in his first Death Star Trench Run.
* He almost crashes his fighter whilst firing blindly at the Death Star's surface.
* Luke, who has never been religious, turns off his targeting computer during a skitzophrenic eposide when he hear's a voice in his head telling him to take stupid risks.
Yet another Oversight by the Death Star design crew - Turbo Lasers that were too slow to track the enemy fighters
So did Luke destroy the Death Star? I say no. Luke was just as much an idiot during the Trench run as he was the day before where the movie picks up. As a screw-up, he fired his torpedos (AFTER turning off his guidance and targeting computer!) at the exact moment the Death Star was preparing to fire it's primary weapons. It was by sheer co-incidence that Lukes final salvo was launched just as the Death Star fired it's lasers... the same lasers which were overheated and likely damaged THE DAY BEFORE when Alderaan was destroyed by it. We know the Death Star was new and untested. We know that there were no nearby spare parts had the units been damaged the day before. We also know that the only remaining pilot capable of destroying the Death Star (with it's excessively flawed design) was an idiot. Even Han Solo (an experienced pilot) said that he "had flown from one side of the galaxy to the other and {he'd} never seen ANYTHING that would make him believe in an all-powerful Force".
Clearly, the Death Star suffered catastrophic failure from the previous day's overheating during testing of the prototype weapons. Weapons which were as poorly designed as the outer defences and exhaust ports were. The damaged components resulted in backflash and triggered an immediate self destruction.
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/Worked on Star Wars.
/Not a geek.