SortStack #3419 — 2035-10-19
By price · Order from cheapest to most expensive.
- A PlayStation 5 console $500
The PS5 sold out so fast at launch during the pandemic that scalper bots became a news story — resale prices briefly doubled the sticker.
- A Tesla Powerwall home battery, installed $9.3K
A Powerwall stores about enough electricity to run a typical US home for half a day to a day — many owners buy them less for savings than for blackout insurance.
- A new hot-air balloon with basket and burner $40K
The envelope fabric slowly degrades with UV exposure — most balloons retire after a few hundred flight hours, making cost per flight surprisingly high.
- The Louisiana Purchase, as the US paid France $15M
The 1803 nominal price bought about 2.1 million square kilometers — roughly three cents per acre — and doubled the size of the United States overnight.
- Stan, one of the most complete T. rex skeletons ever found $31.8M
After the record 2020 sale, Stan's whereabouts were a mystery for years — he eventually surfaced as the future star of a new natural history museum in Abu Dhabi.
- The International Space Station $150B
Often called the most expensive object ever built, the ISS has been continuously inhabited since the year 2000 and orbits Earth about sixteen times a day.