2. The Sun Gun That Could Have Burnt Entire Cities To Ash
One weapon Hitler could have been considering launching into orbit was the sun gun, also known as the heliobeam. This theoretical weapon was like something out of a supervillain's notebook. The space-based weapon was dreamt up by German physicist Hermann Oberth in 1929, half a century before the Star Wars initiative became reality. He planned a space station on which a 100 metre-wide concave mirror could be fitted. This mirror would concentrate sunlight onto a point on the surface of the Earth, burning a swathe of destruction much like the Icarus satellite did in the James Bond film, Die Another Day. Oberth's calculations were off, though, and his version couldn't have worked. However, during World War II, scientists at the German research base in Hillersleben began to rework his idea into something with better maths. They calculated that a huge reflector made out of metallic sodium, with a surface area of 9 square km, could generate enough focused heat to boil an ocean boil or fry a city. During questioning by the Allies, these scientists insisted the sun gun could be completed within only 10 years. At the time, there would have been almost no way of knocking out the Nazi space station, had it been built, since the Germans were far ahead in rocketry.