West Germany To Build The Poor Man’s Sputnik

Press, Volume XCVI, Issue 28473, 31 December 1957, Page 9

West Germany To Build The Poor Man’s Sputnik

<Rec. 9 p. m .) NEW YORK, December 30. West Germany was building a miniature earth satellite—a socalled “poor man’s sputnik”— complete with a radio “beep,” the North American Newspaper Alliance reported from Cologne. It said the satellite would be launched by an H-stage, one-ton rocket designed by one of Hitler’s missile designers, Ernst Mohr. Mr Mohr had said that the German “Volkssputnik” would Jfse a solid fuel, in contrast to the liquid fuel used in American rockets The rocket would have the same cordite-burning combustion chambers he used in the wartime Hitler missile. “We chose solid fuel because it js cheaper and more reliable,” the designer explained. “We Je^? e d that during the war.” The agency quoted Mr Mohr as «ying that the rocket for the "volkssputnik” was based on the resign for one of Hitler’s secret Jq. weapons, a missile he Claimed was successfully fired 85 “®®s just before the war’s end ine satellite itself was being resigned by a Cologne University Professor. “Mr Mohr takes pains to emurn*SlSe . that the German space a purely scientific unIha rv ng without connexion with 6 United States-Soviet earth

satellite comj tion. He esti- • mates it will at least three i years to get t German sputnik ■ into orbit,” tl agency said. Details of satellite to be • launched by ’ Mohr’s rocket ■ were sparse, t it was described as “so small u can put it in • your pocket.” The miniati satellite would » carry a relati y large cargo of scientific inst: ients, thanks to ■ the German r for miniature I equipment. “The princ 1 mystery surrounding the German ‘people’s sputnik’ is jus vho is behind it Mr Mohr cl is the German satellite is a s of backyard do-it-yourself ho r of former Hitlerite rocketee He claims there is no Govei ‘ent money involved. “Now a p perous businessman, Mr Moh laims he and the rocketeers co borating on the project are fii ced by contributions from s e fans, some of them admittec wealthy. “Although ( ured as the parttime hobby i ‘space amateurs.' the backyarc satellite involves some impress talent. It is being assiste by the German Society for cket Technology and the Stat upported Society for Space Re r ch at Stuttgart whose direct .was a leading rocketeer for Htlcj, Dr. Eugen Saenger.”