Some amazing stuff from John Carmack (Armadillo Aerospace) | Lunar lander design | Forum

I was just reading the Wikipedia article on Armadillo Aerospace, and nearly fell out of my chair to read this:

Carmack has stated in his monthly reports and in forum posts that he expects his path to an orbital vehicle to include modular rockets similar to OTRAG technology. Lutz Kayser, 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 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 highproduction methods over hand crafter prototypes." — June 2006 Armadillo Aerospace Update^[15]

I also was interested to read: "All of its employees (including Carmack) have other, full-time jobs and contribute their efforts twice weekly to Armadillo on a voluntary basis."

I think Amardillo are a great source of inspiration for us, demonstrating that smart, motivated people really can achieve an impressive amount of success in aerospace on a small budget.