5 thoughts on “Blast From The Past”

1. “…but it did inspire (at least for a while) John Carmack and Armadillo.”

   And, for whatever it may be worth, the Millirons and Interorbital.

2. It inspired me, back in the 70s. I studied the OTRAG approach as closely as I could. It inspired one of the launch system patents I wrote. The opposition was fierce, even though “commercial space transportation” was not a thing at the time. I recall that General Dynamics, builder at the time of the Atlas, really put on a full court press against them. It would be more than a decade before GD tried to commercialize the Atlas.

3. The story of OTRAG had been written — by novelist Joseph_Conrad. Lutz Kayser with his vision of mass-produced massed-clusters of pressure-fed rocket modules was successful, too successful, that the Great Powers banded together to shut him down, alleging that he had “gone native” and was going to arm everyone from Apartheid South Africa to Libyan strongman Kadafi.

4. Years ago, somebody (memory suggests either Jerry Pournelle or Harry Stine, but I don’t recollect) and called it the first space war.

5. RIP.

   This is one of the great “what if?” personalities in space history. It really shows what could have happened if governments hadn’t clamped down on the development of the sector for decades.

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