Dietrich Genscher, the then-minister of German foreign affairs, is said to have finally stopped the project under pressure from France and the Soviet Union, and West Germany joined the co-financed "European rocket" Ariane project, which made the OTRAG project unnecessary and eliminated political entanglements of a still divided Germany in the early 1980s. Around 2009, Lutz Kayser had been advising Interorbital Systems, resulting in a similar modular rocket design for their Neptune series. John Carmack, founder and lead engineer of Armadillo Aerospace has stated in his monthly reports and in forum posts that he expected his path to an orbital vehicle to include modular rockets similar to OTRAG technology. Kayser, being the founding engineer of OTRAG, visited Armadillo in May, 2006 and loaned Carmack some of their original research hardware. "I have been corresponding with Lutz [Kayser] for a few months now, and I have learned quite a few things. I seriously considered an OTRAG style massive-cluster-of-cheap-modules orbital design back when we had 98% peroxide (assumed to be a biprop with kerosene), and I have always considered it one of the viable routes to significant reduction in orbital launch costs. After really going over the trades and details with Lutz, I am quite convinced that this is the lowest development cost route to significant orbital capability. Eventually, reusable stages will take over, but I actually think that we can make it all the way to orbit on our current budget by following this path. The individual modules are less complicated than our current vehicles, and I am becoming more and more fond of high production methods over hand crafter prototypes." -- Carmack June 2006 Armadillo Aerospace Update See also Pressure-fed engine (rocket) ARCAspace References External links B14643.de Article about the OTRAG history (de) Astronautix.com OTRAG 2001 inc Documentary "Fly Rocket Fly" (B/D, 90 Min, 2018): www.otrag.com Companies based in Stuttgart Rocketry Private spaceflight companies Aerospace companies of Germany Defunct spaceflight companies German companies established in 1975