V/A - Fly Rocket Fly: From The Jungle To The Stars

"Long before Elon Musk reached for the stars with his SpaceX project, a Swabian engineer by the name of Lutz Kayserharbored his own childhood dream of a voyage into space. Fly Rocket Fly - Mit Macheten Zu Den Sternen ("To The Stars With Machetes") tells the remarkable story of how he and a dedicated band of Stuttgart engineers founded the world's first private space exploration enterprise: Orbital Transport-und Raketen Aktiengesellschaft, or OTRAG (Orbital Transport and Rockets Inc.). Having enlisted Wernher von Braun as scientific adviser, this early start-up developed a rocket in the late 1960s on the principle of low cost rather than high tech. Windscreen wiper motors were deployed in valve control systems, for example. Kayser's search for a suitable development site led him to African dictator Mobutu Sese Sekowho signed off on a deal to allow OTRAG to establish a launch facility in the Congolese jungle. OTRAG built their very own German Cape Canaveral in an area the size of the for