Where to park your Death Star

Ever imagined you’re flying the Millennium Falcon or at the helm of the Death Star?

Well, making the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs would be easy compared to figuring out where to park the thing once you’ve disengaged the hyperdrive.

Thankfully, help is at hand after a Kiwi software engineer created an ingenious app for his Star Wars-mad son.

Tama Easton, from Nelson, designed parkmyspaceship after son Harry asked him how big a Star Destroyer was. After doing research online, he found the specifications and measured out 1600 metres to demonstrate the ship’s actual length.

Easton then decided to build an app that allows users to gauge the exact size of fictional and real spacecraft and compare them to well-known landmarks around the world. For example, the 35-metre Millennium Falcon is as big as Stonehenge, while at 900 kilometres, the Death Star Mk2 would cover the whole South Island.

‘‘The idea came from my seven-year-old son who has just hit the Star Wars phase in life and wanted to know how big a Star Destroyer is,’’ he said. ‘‘I found the measurements and we went for a bike ride and I measured out the size. He really liked it and I thought it could be an app.’’

Easton, 44, is a web architect for Nelson-based developer UpShift, which builds websites and apps, such as a recent project for Oregon State University in the US to visualise how treated wood contaminates water systems.

He used the same techniques on his spaceship app and said although some of the blueprints were easy to find, others were a source of contention.

‘‘I found the specifications through Google. Some of them, like the Millennium Falcon or the Starship Enterprise, were easy to find but others are a bit more difficult. There are arguments about the exact size of the Death Star, so I went with the most common.’’

He said as well-researched as the app is, he is braced for Star Wars and Star Trek geeks discovering faults in some of the technical specifications.

‘‘I’m not a diehard fan. I grew up watching the films but I’m not an expert. I imagine .. . there will be people calling up saying I got this and that wrong but that’s fine, I’ll deal with that if it happens.’’

He hoped the app would help visualise science and engineering concepts to young science fiction fans.

‘‘It’s a simple idea that schoolkids can enjoy. It’s a lot of fun but hopefully it helps to demonstrate the size and scale of these spaceships. Some are huge. The Super Destroyer . . . was 9km long.’’

And it’s not only the scale of the fictional craft that has surprised users, the size of the International Space Station has raised eyebrows too. ‘‘Everyone in the office freaked out about the size of the International Space Station – it’s only 109 metres in length.’’

Tama Easton