SortStack #836 — 2028-09-22

By price · Order from cheapest to most expensive.

1. A Nintendo Switch Lite console $199

   Nintendo has a history of durable hardware: the original Game Boy survived a Gulf War bombing and still works, on display at Nintendo New York.

2. One year at Harvard, including tuition, room, and board $82K

   Harvard's endowment is so large that the university could theoretically let every undergraduate attend free and barely notice — financial aid means many already pay little.

3. A Rolls-Royce Phantom, before options $517K

   Each Phantom's 'Starlight Headliner' is hand-threaded with hundreds of fiber-optic stars — buyers can order the exact night sky from a date of their choosing.

4. The production of 'Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides' $379M

   It remains among the most expensive films ever made — partly due to star salaries and shooting on water, which filmmakers consider a budget black hole.

5. The entire Apollo Moon program, in the dollars of its day $25.4B

   At its peak, Apollo employed about 400,000 people and consumed more than 4% of the US federal budget — per landing, each Moon mission cost less than a modern aircraft carrier.

6. Building the US Interstate Highway System, in the dollars of its day $114B

   Championed by Eisenhower after he saw Germany's autobahns, the system took 35 years to declare complete — the original estimate was a fraction of the final bill.

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