THE SUN GUN

Was this WWII’S most bizarre plan?

The original Sonnengewehr, or sun gun, proposed by German physicist Hermann Oberth in 1929, would have involved a 100-metre-wide concave mirror being placed into orbit around Earth, able to reflect concentrated sunlight back on a desire target and utilising our star as a weapon. During World War II, the concept was revived by the German Army Artillery, who expanded the idea to include a space station that would orbit 5,100 miles above the planet attached to a ‘mirror’ made of metallic sodium stretching 3.5 square miles, manoeuvred by thruster rockets to find its target. They thought that at this size it would be able to burn a city or boil an ocean. Not surprisingly, this ambitious superweapon was never attempted. It was estimated by German scientists that it might take another 50 to 100 years to perfect the technology needed to utilise the Sun in this way.