OTRAG - A Story Of German Rocket Scientists, African Dictators & Commercial Spaceflight

Orbital Transport und Raketen AG can claim to be the first private company to attempt to develop a commercial orbital launch solution. Founded by Lutz Kayser and counting Wernher von Braun among its advisors it had a novel approach to commoditizing rocket hardware to create a launch solution that could scale to requirements. It also performed most of the testing and launches in African nations ruled by dictators in addition to making France and the Soviet Union unhappy about a German developed rocket.
The 2015 interview with The Guardian is here:
www.theguardian.com/travel/20...
And there is a feature length documentary called 'Fly Rocket Fly' which has been shown at film festivals but not released properly in the US otrag.com/english-story

[@TheMotlias]

This is the most kerbal disign of any real rocket Ive ever seen: "Okay what if, and hear me out here, we just strap 400 boosters in stages together? What could go wrong?"

[@OldGamerNoob]

This makes me wonder how the price would compare to stacked solid boosters instead of liquid

[@Skyfox94]

I think he also missunderstood the principle of simplification - which is also a very Kerbal thing to do. It's way simpler to use one big, tested reliable rocket instead of dozens to hundreds of small rockets that could fail independly - especially when produced very very cheaply.

[@OldGamerNoob]

@@Skyfox94 same logic that made falcon heavy seem like something extremely simple to do. had that been that simple, starship would be a falcon 9 with 6 boosters wrapped all the way around it ... or even moar honeycombed off of those. bit still, even skipping the sounding rocket and making the mass produced segments such a size that the simplest variant would be able to get to orbit would have simplified considerably AND probably helped the thrust to mass ratio a bit.

[@willlord7220]

I won’t be surprised if this inspired the kerbal philosophy

[@-danR]

steel:fuel ratio: 1:1 It ain't going very far, but it sure ain't gonna explode either.

[@theamartstore]

I see they didn't try the "add more struts" technique. Amateurs.

[@quaternarytetrad4039]

I'll bet they didn't even autostrut

[@JeepWranglerIslander]

Clearly they fell back on rule number one which is simply: add more boosters.

[@gustavgnoettgen]

@@JeepWranglerIslander how dare you. Rule number one is still "Check your staging"!

[@lithostheory]

Russian N1 rocket: 30 engines SpaceX Starship: 37 engines ORTAG: hold my beer

[@Bengt.Lueers]

*Hold my garden variety kerosene.

[@TheArklyte]

Space X used return as a way to cut costs, N1 was just simple as fuck(universal engine on all stages, spherical pressure tanks, riveted hull). These guys instead found a way to INCREASE the cost:D Because they didn't understand what was expensive - engines.

[@bradley3549]

@@TheArklyte I wonder just how expensive their rocket engines were with ablative lining allowing for cheap materials, and a very simple control system. I suspect without turbo pumps, inconel, etc. They were very cheap for their thrust. With modern day electronics controlling differential thrust and damping pogo oscillations, I bet a design like that could technically work and still be cheaper than some of the systems out there (cough, SLS...)

[@PaulTomblin]

Penthouse Magazine had an article about OTRAG when they were still in business that was illustrated by a picture of an Air Launched Cruise Missile with a swastika on it cruising above the savanna of Zaire.

[@skyggen2]

A strange twist to this story. The journalist of the Guardian article on Lutz was Kim Wall. She was murdered by Peter Madsen, mad inventor who built his own submarine, and now wanted to build rocket and go to space in collaboration with Copenhagen Suborbitals. They called him the RocketMan. He tortured and killed her on board his own submarine and dumped her dismembered body in the ocean. He is now in prison indefinetly. RIP Kim and the Danish Space Program.

[@HaraldSangvik]

CS lives on :)

[@abrahamwilberforce9824]

I just looked that up. What the flying f man, dude. Also the company is named CopSub and he split up with them four years befire he killed that woman. But flippin hell man.

[@moosemaimer]

I watched a documentary on Copenhagen Suborbitals and got nearly to the end before I realized it was the same guy who was in the news. Apparently at some point he sustained a head injury that led to a dramatic shift in his personality, making him very paranoid and argumentative.

[@skyggen2]

@@abrahamwilberforce9824 You are correct. Copenhagen Suborbitals are normal and serious guys and have already done engine tests. They excluded him because he was a loon. But the press kinda latched on to him. He made his own rocketshop, but never achieved anything, other than infamy.

[@Xatzimi]

Seems to me there's no one attempting to make rocket startups that isn't a little bit crazy

[@TWX1138]

The largest flying model rocket I ever built used a cluster of seven Estes D engines. I hadn't realied how badly misalignment of the ganged body-tubes would affect the flight performance of the rocket, it partly broke midair, pitched downward, caught fire while still flying, and crashed right after the engines burned out. Needless to say, I kept it to single-engines per-stage after that.

[@DistracticusPrime]

Now you've got me wondering about ways to precisely align clustered model rocket engines. JoeyB, help us!

[@lowereducation6631]

We tried something similar and it ended up raining engines

[@roelwieggers4181]

Revert to VAB, tweak and retry.

[@markiangooley]

I built a rocket meant to use 3 D engines but never launched it...

[@Hebdomad7]

Clearly you needed more struts.

[@nikitakazovski9619]

just wanted to say thank you for starting me on my path to becoming an aerospace engineer about 4 years ago. you're the best.

[@pansepot1490]

Try not to crash too many rockets. 😁👍

[@rtleitao78]

Check yo stagin!

[@Rocketmaster-xn4zu]

Thanks Scott for doing a video about OTRAG! Lutz Kayser actually was my granduncle, although i Never got to See him as He basically lived on the other side of the world... The movie is really Good and informative and i recommend watching it , but it only covers the story when they were in Zaire. I may still have some original documents lying around, so if you Want i could send some Pictures of them to you.

[@charlie19988991]

Please do it, and Scott Please cover them ^^ would be so awesome to see them :D

[@seanbaskett5506]

@@charlie19988991 Your grand uncle was a true badass

[@francemiaou]

Hello, Im working on a documentary about OTRAG and Lutz Kayser. I would be interested in speaking to you if you're still available

[@peterharoldjanakjr2078]

Hi. My dad might like those. He was Lutz's right hand man while he was there. Peter Janak. I don't know what Kayser's company name was before going for private funding. The Docu calls my dad a NASA Engineer. But, he actually had worked for TRW prior to qorking with Lutz. TRW was a contractor for NASA during the Apollo program. Lutz was also a family friend for decades . By how my dad tells it, he left the compnay prior to Lutz creating OTRAG and selling stock in it. Or maybe it was ALWAYS called OTRAG. I'm not certain. Maybe I'm confused. My dad led the effort on the propulsion, propellant storage and flow, and pressurization systems. The only hardware they worked on at first while he was there were the engines. After concluding that Lutz first company would never get a german contract, my dad left to return to TRW. When that happen Jack Fryday(family friend), also formerly of TRW, stayed on and became Lutz's right hand man. He left a few years later. Frank Wukash was also a family friend and also became Lutz right hand man for a time. Lutz, finally gave up on a government production contract. So, he decided to create a new company and to sell stock in it to raise the money needed. So, Lutz created the first non government funded rocket building company in the world, OTRAG. Mobuto took away the launch site after watching a failed launch and feared losing political and financial support among countries that thought Germany might be trying to amass rockets again. According to my dad, before leaving, 8 of the technicians decided to take a rafting/fishing trip on a dangerous river. They all died under odd circumstances. It was never disclosed whether they were killed by animal or man. My dad loves him. Always spoke highly of him and tells me he was a great guy.

[@liesdamnlies3372]

"Nitrogen tetroxide" _starts running away from the very idea of this rocket_

[@8bitwiz_]

orange oxidizer bad

[@JeepWranglerIslander]

Mmm that's the good stuff!

[@tog3334]

6:19 Look at that nice orange cloud! NTO fer sure.

[@kirkc9643]

@@tog3334 Yep those orange clouds even look dangerous

[@samarvora7185]

And then there's Oxygen Trifluoride.

[@syriuszb8611]

This design is insane! Like, they are aware of square-cube law, right? And they went against it... Also: people are afraid that we might develop weapons, so to elevate their concerns lets work with dictators!

[@framegrace1]

I suppose dictators were an easy target to get funding. You just have to promise cheap missiles.

[@DistracticusPrime]

@@framegrace1 Hey it worked for Dr. Emmet Brown.

[@EdwardDowner]

@@DistracticusPrime Or en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_Bull

[@NittanyTiger1]

I was going to ask if the small tanks increased the dry mass and lowered the delta V of the stages compared to monolithic tank stages of similar size? They also could hold less fuel than a monolithic design. I could just see any potential manufacturing cost offset by needing more material and fuel + oxidizer per rocket to get certain payload sizes into orbit.

[@fred_derf]

@@DistracticusPrime You take that back! Dr. Emmet Brown didn't work with Dictators! He worked with Terrorists.

[@mikeedwards350]

Scott- You know you have to do this in KSP now? Thanks for the great content, it must have been very intriguing at the time and you can see why SpaceX received a lot of scepticism initially.

[@janisber111]

+1 im waiting for it to xD

[@MatteoMori]

Upvote. And you have to set the launch pad in Zaire

[@guidoferri8683]

That guy was obsessed with asparagus

[@brett4264]

Hahahahaha!

[@brett4264]

This comment flew well over the heads of many.

[@quaternarytetrad4039]

A classic method

[@Cessna1541]

@@brett4264 I bet it didn't

[@dsdy1205]

This is onion staging tho

[@niiinaa]

5:05 "There were however some problems" color me surprised, I did not see this one going wrong

[@scottmanley]

Had you guessed what the problems were at this point?

[@RCP-1136]

@@scottmanley I wondered about roll stabilization and vacuum optimized nozzles. I would be interested how they tried to implement the differential thrust, did each module feature its own IMU or was just one unit controlling all units? what if that one failed? did each additional module correspond to an added level in redundancy? the concept seems not very thought trough as you concluded...

[@niiinaa]

@@scottmanley I didn't really... I just knew something had to go wrong because I would likely have heard of the rocket if it was a successful programme. Also ksp experience tells me square rockets with no stabilization will cause some issues before reaching orbit

[@mattcolver1]

There was a design being kicked around McDonnell Douglas back during the Reagan SDI years. They called it the Barbarian. It was 12 clustered Delta II 1st stages, 3 Shuttle SRBs, with a 5M Titan IV fairing on top. I don't recall what was being used as an upper-stage. During that time they would have probably opted for either a Boeing IUS or a Lockheed 2 engine Centaur. One of the managers had a model of it in his office. It was impressive.

[@painmono2478]

I can imagine lol

[@Shaker626]

What else do you think Reagan-era defence spending and cocaine would do to contractors?

[@robertmendelsohn8082]

I am glad to have known Lutz. He was a pioneer, a real original, and someone who fought his whole life for a space-faring future. He led a challenging life; there were multiple assassination attempts on his life, and he lived in extremely remote places. In many ways he paved the way for our current space industry, and I am grateful to him and all the others who sacrificed so much for our future in space.

[@harrymack3565]

I think I have played too much ksp because my first tough when he said 1000 core rocket was "it would run slow with that high a part count.."

[@Bialy_1]

In the old days i was flying 1300+ parts rocket on my AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ and saying it was "slow" would be an understatement. In first stage it was 60 seconds of real time to get one second of in game flight... ;)

[@harrymack3565]

@@Bialy_1 lol yeah, based on the length trying to guess or looks like it might be 3-4 of the long 1.25 meter tanks so prob 3-4 thousand parts on the first stsge. If and speaking of slow one j tryed to make a cluster bomb and it dropped a out 1300 of the basket ball tanks and oof.

[@ingusmant]

Otrag crashes reality

[@TheMalarz1989]

When this skyscraper sized rocket appeared on the screen I burst into laud laughter :D Crazy idea :D

[@TheMrPeteChannel]

I'm the 50th like!

[@janos71]

Oh that's interesting, I am from Germany and have already read about the German rocket company on Wikipedia but could not find much about it.

[@DarkBlue81]

same here 🤷‍♂️😏

[@throwaway80345]

Es gab mal vom Magazin P.M. n Artikel darüber.

[@sirflashback]

Watch the incredible movie! otrag.com/english-story

[@erikthered4929]

The documentary is relatively new (2018), but I'm not sure if there will ever be a proper release. I was able to find a DVD rip with English subtitles (can't link it, but it might be available on the other popular sites for such things), making it pretty likely the German BD/DVD has English subs for anyone interested; you might need to bypass the region locking or get a region-free player though.

[@useodyseeorbitchute9450]

Maybe because of history rockets are considered as problematic and censored there too? ;)

[@rollertoaster812]

Yep, that looks like a 70s era automotive windshield wiper motor right in the middle at 2:55

[@SeanBZA]

Still used these days, though the case is smaller, lighter and it is a lot more expensive to repair when it fails. But for the mass cheap, easy to drive and very rugged, and it does work.

[@DistracticusPrime]

I love this wiper motor idea. Off the shelf part, already mass produced, designed to be reliable outdoors with zero maintenance.

[@phcjs]

It looks like a Mercedes W123 Wiper Motor assembly. Built to last. Gearbox is light, motor has ~70% of the unit weight. May be they replaced the Motor by a smaller one? Can not see it anywhere, only the gearbox is visible.

[@ArjunaKunti]

Because they did use off-the-shelf wiper motors manufactured by Bosch.

[@cinhh]

Cool, I'm from Germany and never heard of OTRAG. Thanks for that! The docu 'Fly Rocket Fly' seems to be available on iTunes and Amazon. Have to give this a look on the weekend.

[@michaelkorntheuer8401]

Where the hell did you find that much info and images and VIDEO about OTRAG?????? I have been looking for years to get some details on their designs, let alone actual pictures. What is your source?

[@Tubethunder1]

On the Website of the mentioned documentory you can find Press Material with Most of the information. The Name of the documentory ist fly rocket fly.

[@timbermicka]

Google

[@jimoberg3326]

Friends.

[@Phroggster]

Aliens.

[@odysseusrex5908]

He's got this cousin named Bond . . .

[@ketas]

3:58 - world trade center north has liftoff!

[@no3ironman11100]

I love that you're taking the extra time to make those awesome videos. Thanks man. Honestly it feels like they're well researched and the editing is on point. I initially didn't like the switch out from KSP but this is still awesome.

[@RRVCrinale]

Now I'm remembering the Mythbusters test where they made a rocket sled to launch Buster through the air that was powered by nothing but Estes motors. That was a nightmare to get working, and that was just one stage - they resorted to putting the tail of the rocket in a pan of black powder just because they knew there was no way that wouldn't hit all the rockets. Now I'm remembering my brush with rocketry as a little boy. Nothing was less reliable than that electric launch system. Sometimes it launched in a few seconds, sometimes after tense minutes...and if you're anything like me, sometimes the wind kills you before staging can.

[@lewiscole5193]

Someone has probably already pointed out that the CBR approach mentioned in this video was *NOT* the approach that Lutz Kaiser was originally proposing. Instead, he used long commercial pipes that were not partitioned internally into fuel and oxidizer sections, but each pipe was used to hold just one thing, either oxidizer or propellant. IIRC, his original fuel-oxidizer combination was diesel and nitric acid and as this video mentions, they blown (rather than pumped) into a bunch of rockets with the amounts controlled by valves controlled by electrical VW windshield wiper motors. The fuel-oxidizer mixer had been used before in other rockets, but the combustion was erratic resulting in "pogoing" and so a lot of the tests originally done in Germany were to come up with a magic mixing nozzle that would keep combustion steady. All of this was written about in a _Popular Science_ article that I have laying around somewhere but am too lazy to look for at the moment, but a good documentary about OTRAG can be found here: < kzbin.info/www/bejne/gpellHaCiLaDY8U > P.S. The _Popular Science_ article entitled "Bargain-basement rocket - a low technology 'truck' for cheap shots in space" can be found in the March 1978 issue, starting on page 76. This issue also as all of the old ones of the time can be found at the _Popsci_ Web site.

[@Hope4Today9]

Great Video !!! Thanks all your content is always informative.

[@GeoffreyCraig]

I remember OTRAG being written up in Omni magazine - 1979/80-ish. Thanks for posting it! Great Stuff!

[@dismiggo]

Looks like all of my KSP rockets

[@sadiqmohamed681]

I remember this. Always wanted to know what happened to OTRAG. Thank you Scott.

[@jwenting]

they were basically given the same treatment as the Avro Arrow and the TSR.2...

[@Crustyislooking]

Lighting 40 motors at the same time sounds problematic

[@TheMrPeteChannel]

Tell that to Superheavy!

[@michaeldunne338]

Great topic to cover, with this relatively unknown endeavor from the 1970s (stretching into the 1980s) ... Nice explanation of the components, the engineering of which underpinned the efficiencies that they were striving for.

[@SkylersRants]

Always learning something new here. Thanks.

[@markd5804]

Thanks for another great video Scott!

[@Cosmic_Fyre]

How very kerbal of them. Not enough thrust? just add more of the same boosters!

[@mikedonovan9033]

Lol "We want to build incredibly simple rockets" "We're gonna build a rocket with over a thousand engines and fuel tanks" Yeah.....

[@Ugly_German_Truths]

Uhh what? How did you get to this from what Scott said? You are aware that they did not add an engine to any 6 meters of length, they just fused two tubes and made a bigger version of the smaller "unit" out of them? It would have been 60-something individual rockets with a set of engines (not sure if each tube was supposed to have one or two nozzles?) for the three stages of 48, 12 and 4 tubes, but over 1000? Nope.

[@kindlin]

​@@Ugly_German_Truths No, Mike basically nailed it. They try and make it simple by quadupalling, coupling the number of parts and things that can go wrong. PS: 3:51 ...which would require over a thousand CRPU's.

[@ozzymandius666]

Remember the Canadian space gun/artillery designer who couldn't get any work in the west, so he worked for some dubious folk in the ME, and got assassinated?

[@Ugly_German_Truths]

I think there was a Scott Manley video about him? Just last month or so? :D

[@OnboardG1]

Gerard Bull IIRC.

[@1224chrisng]

he bought some drain pipes from Yorkshire or something right? and people got sus when the drains had rifling

[@dorquemadagaming3938]

The documentary is amazing, you definitely should see it when possible.

[@cerebral3591]

I think bigger segments the size of a semi-trailer would be interesting. You'd need less segments, still transportable, still mass producible, could have larger engine bells for vacuum stages, etc.

[@grantexploit5903]

I have a similar concept for an orbital rocket where the first stage was made of DOT-111 rail tanks (relative number depending on the fuel mixture) with bolted intertanks affixed on-site, with the remaining 3 stages made of progressively smaller conventional industrial tanks.

[@venera13]

Interorbital has a similar concept with their Neptune rocket, so I wasn't surprised to see you mention them.

[@mastershooter64]

otrag engineers: how many boosters do you want? lutz: yes ortag: is 50 enough? lutz: moar boosters!!!

[@blueberry1c2]

Its nice to have standardized boosters to ease construction, but when the implementation of these boosters is more complex than just building a bigger booster...

[@ReinhardB100]

4:10 This looks like taken straight from a Perry Rhodan novel ^^

[@charlesmoore456]

Or, Godzilla vs. Rhodan.

[@badsmilesorrisocattivo]

Thanks, I will lock

[@LikeOnATree]

Great history! Thanks Scott!

[@addictedtopiano]

grats on that sweet sweet 1 million subs, Scotty!

[@TheSuperGamerFail]

The "ring fin" thing was something we did when making water rockets - Just cutting short lengths of the body tubing and attaching it. It worked surprisingly well.

[@bier00t]

that is the most interesting story about space industry i've ever heard. keep them coming pls. o7

[@KermitFrazierdotcom]

In the Dark Days before Thiokol Rubber. @2:30 "Are We Men? No! We Are DEVO!" @4:10 Launching the World Trade Center

[@abrahamwilberforce9824]

My new conspiracy theory. The world trade centre was not blown up by al caida, it was launched by Lutz Kayser to supply the Nazi Bas eon the dark side of the moon.

[@absalomdraconis]

@@abrahamwilberforce9824 : Nope... _The Nazi Nudist Colony on Mars._

[@ricardoentz]

Wow, thanks for the super high quality content!

[@thomasgunther]

I had no idea! Thank you for digging this up.

[@StYxXx]

Thanks for this video :) The company was from my home town. So sad commercial spaceflight didn't really take off (:P) back then.

[@cjkturtle9762]

1 million subs! Congratulations

[@skaltura]

wow, never heard of otrag before :O a full length documentary would be indeed very cool

[@OSemeador]

Ok, now I want to see a good documentary about OTRAG and everything else around it. What an adventure!

[@seanellis7563]

If I recall correctly, this was covered by Tomorrow's World (BBC, UK) back in the 1970s or early 1980s, where they showed the stacking of pipes, film from Zaire, and demonstrated a hypergolic red fuming nitric acid and diesel fuel combination in the studio.

[@heathcliff8624]

Great video. Thank you.

[@jshood3353]

Thank you. Good information.

[@KD5NJR]

Loved the old article in Air and Space Smithsonian ....

[@keithwhittygmail]

Excellent research. Love it

[@ixglocTV]

When I first read about OTRAG in a German popular science magazine in 1981 as a 14 year old, I was convinced it was the future.

[@michaellosh1851]

I think I was around the same age when I read about it in american 'Popular Science' magazine. I thought it was really interesting idea: "built to battleship tolerances" or some such thing! Now SpaceX is taking some of that spirit, but applying proper physics and enough sophistication to make rockets that really work.

[@threefeetofair758]

This content is why I watch your channel.

[@yetanotherstronk]

I love imagining the subtitles for the post-failure conversation with Mobutu at 6:24. General: "Look over there, was it supposed to do that?" Designer: "Well, you see, it kind of started flying at an angle, which caused a small problem" General: "No, no. I'm sure it's supposed to go straight up, like this."

[@megaraph5551]

It looks like your comment is pretty underrated here sir!

[@Ben23315]

You can see the full scene in the documentary. Kayser said something like "still very good launch, only one valve failed."

[@PaddyPatrone]

I watched the documentary. It`s awesome!

[@stevefink6000]

I wish I could thumb up 2x+ the on that one. Wow Scott, how did you come across that one!?!?! Very obscure and very interesting. Just when I thought I knew it all 😆

[@robsin2810]

Nice one, Scot.

[@paulhorn2665]

Wow never heard of OTRAG, it was in Neu-Isenburg just around the corner where I grew up.

[@mikejackson3564]

The documentary is on Amazon Prime (in the US).

[@scottmanley]

Thanks!

[@QuintonMurdock]

Last Monday was my birthday and I got a Orion star blast 2 4.5. I can’t wait for the sky to be clear enough for some good stargazing

[@Ayelmar]

I remember reading a pretty positive-sounding (IIRC) article about OTRAG in an issue of OMNI Magazine in late 1980 or early '81 (again, IIRC on the date).

[@bonetonelord]

Well, that was a wild ride from start to finish. Just like that launch attempt with the dictator in attendance.

[@bearlemley]

Thank you Mr Manley

[@odysseusrex5908]

Fascinating Scott. There was an episode of Salvage 1 where Andy Griffith and his crew took their rocket to Africa and demonstrated it for the local dictator. I wonder if that was inspired by OTRAG.

[@Veptis]

I heard of this once or twice. But never knew the whole history. That was very fascinating.

[@redrobur68]

Very intresting. As a german, born in 1968, i never heard of it. Thank you for sharing.

[@kennethhicks2113]

Enjoyed that bit of rocket history : ) More pls : )

[@avejst]

Great video as always Thanks for sharing :-)

[@gota12pointr]

Love your videos

[@CloudElve]

There's a German Documentary "Fly Rocket Fly" about OTRAG, covering the whole story up to the point when they left Zaire. These guys literally went out on an expedition into the jungle, built roads, established an international airport (Luvua Airport), built a rocket factory, a small town, and everything you need to be nearly self-sufficient from _nothing_, on top of a mountain out in the middle of the African jungle. Being German, their cook even made sausage from the local wildlife. :D And when they had problems finding a company willing to fly staff and rocket parts down to Zaire, they bought several cargo planes and founded and their own airline to get the job done. I think this documentary tells one of the coolest and most adventurous stories in the history of spaceflight, and I can only whole-heartedly recommend it to anyone interested in rockets. I hope you can get it somewhere, and that they've got English subtitles for it. Several years back, a friend of mine at the DLR (German Aerospace Center) also met Lutz Kayser when he visited Germany. The story I heard from him about the end of the whole excursion to Libya was that one day the engineers at OTRAG received an urgent warning from the West German embassy that the Israelis (who understandably were not at all happy about rockets being developed in Gadaffi's Libya), were about to launch an airstrike on the OTRAG complex. The engineers packed up and got the heck out of there, and about 3 hours later the whole launch site was leveled to the ground by the Israeli airforce. I don't know how much truth there is to this story though. In later years the French finally came around and the launch in Esrange was allowed, but by then the whole thing had died down, and the loophole in German tax law which had allowed them to raise a ridiculous amount of money from investors (who could tax-deduct these investments with very attractive conditions based on the projected future returns of the company) had been closed as well. I think everyone is glad that ultimately OTRAG didn't and couldn't contribute to the proliferation of what is a very dangerous technology in the wrong hands. Another thing is also for sure though: Lutz Kayser and the engineers at OTRAG sure as hell lived their lives and pursued their dream to the full.

[@richardmiles3892]

Really interesting.

[@ajowas7122]

Scotty, this was a massively interesting episode! :) I am sad, that it seems they (obviously) had massive problems steering this thing?

[@Eiststiel22]

There is acutally a movie about this called: fly rocket fly. It has english subtitles according to amazon but I am not shure about the audio.

[@MonostripeZebra]

The documentary aired on DW.. it is really cool!

[@daveherbert6215]

Brilliant video. My knowledge and experience of rocketry is paltry in comparison to most of your viewers. Again brilliant and interesting video

[@ratandmonkey2982]

Outrageous !

[@kenleach2516]

Nice report x

[@vicroc4]

The logic was actually fairly sound. Volume production tends to make things cheaper. In fact, I've had similar ideas myself, just not the funding or ability to do it.

[@maxk4324]

Has there ever been an orbital vehicle that successfully used _only_ differential thrust for steering? To my knowledge the concept has never worked, but correct me if I'm wrong.

[@DistracticusPrime]

I've attempted that in KSP (like probably 1000 others). Other than for boosters, any actual spacecraft always failed, because at some point there's a coast phase. Spin stabilization helps though. IIRC, there is one real life example that worked, around 1959-ish. SM recreated it in one of his history lesson videos. If I can find it or recall the name of the thing, I'll update this.

[@alexrex7382]

Danke, Scott! I wanted to ask you, if you could do a report about OTRAG! Now you just did it! There is a even great documantary called "FLY ROCKET FLY" out there!

[@EtzEchad]

I love it! I've built things like this in KSP.

[@krzysztofwaleska]

Incedibly clever idea!

[@shrutikgaikwad1799]

Hello Can you please do a video on Range safety and the destruct package present inside of rockets. Thank You.

[@jonathangorrell9674]

Hi Scott, Nothing related to this video, back in the late 1970's I did an internship at the Air Force Rocket Propulsion Lab at Edwards AFB. Once a few of the engineers took me out to look at the remains of some of the tests stands, you would have loved it. One thing they showed me was what was supposedly the first silo ever built or first silo that a rocket was ever fired out of. Now it make since that you would need to test if you can really fire a rocket out of a silo before you go make lots of silos. The interesting thing was that they claimed that as all they wanted to test was if the rocket safely clear the silo and didn't really want the rocket to go anywhere. So they just tethered the rocket to the ground, the rocket safely cleared the silo the tether pulled the rocket back to the ground where it exploded. They pointed to a pile of debris a few 100 yards away and said that was what was left of the rocket. Now I no reason not to believe the guys that were giving me the tour and tethering a rocket is by no means the strangest thing they did during the cold war but I've never been able to verify this story. I would also love to see the film of this test. I figured this might be something you would enjoy researching. Cheers

[@Nathan0A]

This story is going to be turned into a movie someday for sure!

[@lancepharker]

Never heard of this at all, sounds like a similar story to Gerald Bull and his orbital guns. Apart from the end, instead of an island he ended up being assassinated by Mossad... probably.

[@nicholasmaude6906]

Hey Scott, are you looking forward to the upcoming SpaceX Dragon 2 flight abort test in 16 hours time?

[@syedubaid4116]

that Cylindrical pipe "fins" has been my idea for quite a long time.

[@drewduncan5774]

That flying skyscraper concept art 🤯

[@kaekae4010]

1m congrats!

[@KnightRanger38]

I wonder if OTRAG was somehow one of the inspirations for the Kerbal Space Program game.

[@Fluffy_666]

I really would love to build a similar engine..just a lot smaller and just for ground tests XD I just love the simple tubular design as with the OTRAG engines or model rocket hybrid engines like Ratt Works

[@cameronwebster6866]

Scott, Are you going to do a video on one of the astronauts having part of her helmet come off yesterday?

[@PaulTomblin]

The Penthouse magazine article was illustrated with a picture of an air launched cruise missile with a swastika on it cruising above a giraffe. Some years later Bob Gucionne wrote an article in Omni bemoaning the lack of civilian rocket programs without a hint of irony.