News Archive: The Cost of Building a Gundam. A Real Gundam.
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Posted by Ishaan on Jan 11, 2008 at 4:11 AM
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Site Science Portal (run by the Japan Science and Technology Agency) has thrown together estimates for what it would cost to build a live-sized Gundam, and unsurprisingly, according to them, it would cost a whopping $724,310,000. Many thanks to kotaku for the link. The article, translated by Pink Tentacle takes into account the technical limitations and compromises that would be involved in such a project. Here's an excerpt: Note that unlike in the anime, the Gundam described here would merely be able to walk — it would not have the ability to fly or have any fancy weaponry. Also, instead of Gundanium, the robot would be covered in aluminum alloy plating. Gundam -- An IBM Blue Gene supercomputer would serve as the Gundam’s computer system ($1.5 million sounds like a steal), and its movements would be driven by 30 giant 400KW motors — 12 in the legs, 2 in the torso, 14 in the arms, and 2 in the neck. A 400KW motor is quite powerful — by comparison, the Shinkansen bullet train uses a 300KW motor. The motors alone would cost $7.8 million, but to power them would require the equivalent of 7 Apache helicopter engines (the helicopters cost an estimated $52 million each). Here's a breakdown of the costs for you Gundam enthusiasts. You know you want to see them.
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