system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
[Star Wars] How big of a technological marvel is the Death Star?

The Death Star is quite a significant technical achievement in Star Wars. Nothing like it has been done before. In Han Solo's own words:

"The entire starfleet couldn't destroy the whole planet. It'd take a thousand ships with more fire power than I've..."

"It's too big to be a space station."

How big of a technological leap is this? What would be the real world equivalent of such a leap in technology?
gpt
It's a huge leap forward in a number of respects.  It's sheer size is one thing, and an impressive achievement of engineering and logistics on its own. 

The real leap in technology though is the superlaser.  Kyber crystal technology in weapons had previously been limited to the oh so legendary hand weapons.  To have that suddenly scaled up to the point where it's a planet buster, millions of times more powerful than a lightsaber, is unheard of and has no real equivalents.