The dictator’s rocketeer: Lutz Kayser and his extraordinary dream of commercial spaceflight

In the late 1970s, a West German private aerospace firm founded by Lutz Kayser wanted to be the first private company in the world to launch rockets into outer space. Kayser was an entrepreneurial and idiosyncratic rocketeer who was trained and mentored by ex-Nazi rocket scientists. More than four decades before Elon Musk, Richard Branson or Jeff Bezos sought to commercialise space flight, Kayser nearly succeeded in his desire to send ‘Billigraketen’ (cheap rockets) into space. Ultimately, OTRAG (Orbital Transport- und Raketen- Aktiengesellschaft GmbH), Kayser’s company, was derailed as much by growing opposition from the governments of West Germany, East Germany, the USA and the Soviet Union, than any technological shortcomings. Cheap commercial rockets would have broken the superpowers’ oligopoly on space flight, but there were also geopolitical implications of Kayser’s activities in what was then the country of Zaire under the brutal dictatorship of Mobutu Sese Seko that caused OTRAG to become enmeshed in Cold War wrangling. What unfolded in the jungles of southeastern Zaire is a remarkable tale of neocolonialism, geopolitical propaganda, corporate sovereignty and, ultimately, Kayser’s abandonment of his dream in the face of state-based opposition. This paper seeks to understand the origins and legacies of Lutz Kayser’s rocketry dream and examine what it means for contemporary space geopolitics.