OTRAG

OTRAG is the abbreviation for Orbital Forwarding Company, a German company which planned in the late 1970s and early 1980s to develop an alternative drive system for rockets. OTRAG and the rocket of the same name belong thus to the origins of non-governmental space travel.

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The OTRAG rocket represents an inexpensive alternative to the European rocket Ariane or a US space shuttle in planning and/or development stage. Under German engineer Lutz Kayser therefore a private consortium (which has not completely admitted its members) developed the OTRAG rocket. Plans were made toward the end of World War II, after the Allies had destroyed the German fuel yards and refineries to a large extent, for contruction of a missile with a powerful thrust, built with as simple a means as possible .

Abbreviation: Abbreviation (from Latin brevis "short") is strictly a shortening, but more particularly, an abbreviation is a letter or group of letters, taken from a word or words, and employed to represent them for the sake of brevity. For example, the word 'abbreviation' can be abbreviated with 'abbr'....

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1970s: This article provides extensive lists of events and significant personalities of the 1970s. For an in-depth article on the cultural and social trends of the decade, please see The Seventies...