The Nazi rocket plane that was supposed to nuke New York (5 Photos)

So the Nazi party had some mental health issues, perhaps none more insane and clever than that of Eugen Sänger’s Silbervogel. He proposed Mach 22 bombers to devastate America from space. But his design wasn't that crazy. The idea was that upon hitting the denser parts of the stratosphere, the Silbervogel Jet would have bounced right back to space, not unlike a flat stone skipped on the surface of a pond. In a series of gradually decreasing skips, it would easily have reached the continental United States, dropped its payload of four—preferably nuclear—tons on a city of choice, then glided on to a landing in the Japanese-held Pacific. The full story is quite amazing. Read it all here.

So the Nazi party had some mental health issues, perhaps none more insane and clever than that of Eugen Sänger’s Silbervogel. He proposed Mach 22 bombers to devastate America from space. But his design wasn't that crazy. The idea was that upon hitting the denser parts of the stratosphere, the Silbervogel Jet would have bounced right back to space, not unlike a flat stone skipped on the surface of a pond. In a series of gradually decreasing skips, it would easily have reached the continental United States, dropped its payload of four—preferably nuclear—tons on a city of choice, then glided on to a landing in the Japanese-held Pacific. The full story is quite amazing. Read it all here.

So the Nazi party had some mental health issues, perhaps none more insane and clever than that of Eugen Sänger’s Silbervogel. He proposed Mach 22 bombers to devastate America from space. But his design wasn't that crazy. The idea was that upon hitting the denser parts of the stratosphere, the Silbervogel Jet would have bounced right back to space, not unlike a flat stone skipped on the surface of a pond. In a series of gradually decreasing skips, it would easily have reached the continental United States, dropped its payload of four—preferably nuclear—tons on a city of choice, then glided on to a landing in the Japanese-held Pacific. The full story is quite amazing. Read it all here.