Explore every episode of the podcast Failure To Launch

This is a preview of a bonus episode. To hear the rest of the episode and unlock more bonus content, support Failure To Launch on Patreon at any tier.

A formative game from our childhoods, Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2, has a very controversial moment that some have argued could negatively influence young minds. We are of course talking about the mission where you destroy the ISS with a hijacked nuclear missile. And to better explore the topic of space law and nuclear EMPs, we brought on space policy wonk Nik Proxima to talk about it!

Check out Nik’s work here: Space Scout and Proxima: A Human Exploration of Mars

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In 1947, Georg Rickhey, General Director of Mittelwerk, was charged with war crimes. He was acquitted for lack of evidence.Today, Quinn and Chris are talking about Operation Paperclip and the deliberate efforts made by its staff to protect post-war Nazis from justice and war crimes trials (conducted by other US military officers).  

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SOURCES:

- Secret Agenda: The United States Government, Nazi Scientists, and Project Paperclip, 1945–1990, Linda Hunt

- The Rocket and the Reich, Michael Neufeld

- A History of the Dora Camp, Andre Sellier

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This is a preview of a bonus episode. To hear the rest of the episode and unlock more bonus content, support Failure To Launch on Patreon at any tier.

I do not much like the Federation of Central Usea (FCU). They’ve done some bad things. 

This week, Quinn, Chris, and Other Chris cover Ulysses from discovery to impact to the decades of fallout we still live with today. How humanity faced a possible extinction event, how we came together to defend ourselves, and how every Shield against Ulysses was turned into a Sword for war. 

[This is an in-character episode covering the Ulysses Impact Event from the video game series Ace Combat. A big thank you to all the fans who contributed to the Journey Home singalong and Kilian Croghan for the episode art!]

SOURCES:

- Encyclopedia Strangereal

- Last Christmas, Gaze Magazine (Jan 1, 1999)

- Asteroid On Collision Course With Earth, Usea Today (Apr 21, 1996)

- Titan Guns, Our Science (Sept 20, 1998)

- The Twelve Colors of the Sky, Kei Nagase

- Lines in the Sand: A Memoir, L. Foulke

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What with all the history talk, we haven't really yet tackled the space elephant in the room: that the space industry is increasingly run by billionaires and open fascists. So today, we're chatting with Ziggy, a post-graduate student studying fascist movements and their ties to scifi, on how reactionary movements in the past and present have co-opted space for their political ends.

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This is a preview of a bonus episode. To hear the rest of the episode and unlock more bonus content, support Failure To Launch on Patreon at any tier.

In the months before the Bombs Fell, the American space program was preparing for its greatest challenge yet: reaching the Red Planet. But the program wasn't as innocent as it seemed. This week, Scribe Quintus is taking Chris and Other Chris through the history of the USSA's Mars Shot Project and the XMB Booster developed by ArcJet Systems.  

A big thanks to Alex the OK, Nicholas Slayton, Angry Scooter, and Kelly of CIAS for contributing audiologs to this episode.

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Capsule: check. Monkey: check. Downers: check.

To celebrate our 5th anniversary as a show, Quinn, Chris, and Other Chris are going back to the well to talk about our first ever topic: Project Albert. Or “that time the US Government launched a half dozen doped-up monkeys on captured Nazi V-2s”. 

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SOURCES:

- Animals in Space, Colin Burgess and Chris Dubbs

- Packing for Mars, Mary Roach

- A Brief History of Animals in Space, NASA

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In the summer of 1966, work at China’s top-secret space program ground to a halt as every worker spent every day putting up posters, making denunciations, and murdering each other. This week, Quinn, Chris, and Other Chris are joined by November Kelly to talk about Project 714, China’s secret crewed space program and the incredibly dumb reason it died. 

Check out November's work here (TF), and here (WTYP), and here (KJB), and here (BGDC), and here (NGNM)!

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SOURCES:

- Thread of the Silkworm, Iris Chang

- China in Space, Brian Harvey

- China’s Space Program, S. Chandrashekar

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The first space food was made by veterinarians instead of dieticians and was so bad that many astronauts chose to fast through their missions. And it could've been *so* much worse. This week, Quinn, Chris, and Other Chris are talking to Dr Kaveh Hoda, gastroenterologist and host of the House of Pod podcast about the wonderful, disgusting world of astronaut kibble. 

Check out Kaveh's work here!

Tragically, Backstroke of the West appears to have been taken down

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Support FTL on Patreon to unlock bonus content and join our Discord community

SOURCES:

- Packing For Mars, Mary Roach

- Conference on Nutrition in Space and Related Waste Problems

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This is a preview of a bonus episode. To hear the rest of the episode and unlock more bonus content, support Failure To Launch on Patreon at any tier.

Count the moons, duster! Today, Quinn (Belter), Chris (Martian), and Other Chris (Earther) are talking about the largest ship ever built by humans, the LDSS Nauvoo aka the OPAS Behemoth aka Medina Station. We cover its transformation from an ark for the faithful to a missile against the alien to a battleship for the Belt and to a crossroads between stars.

While most of NASA was focused on the Apollo Moon Program, a separate division was hard at work building then deliberately blowing up nuclear rocket cores all over Nevada. This week, we’re talking to train and nuclear knower Scooter about the weird and convoluted story of American nuclear rockets. 

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SOURCES:

- Nuclear propulsion: A vital technology for the exploration of Mars and the planets beyond, NASA 

- The NERVA Nuclear Rocket Reactor Program, W H Esselman

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A secret military space station, a rookie crew, a flaky autopilot, insufficient batteries, a freak winter storm, and a frozen lake. We’re joined by space and KSP youtuber Matt Lowne to talk about Soyuz-23, the only water touchdown of a Soviet spacecraft and how it very nearly killed its entire crew. 

Check out Matt’s videos here!

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Support FTL on Patreon to unlock bonus content and join our Discord community

SOURCES:

- Soyuz: A Universal Spacecraft, Rex Hall

- Salyut-5: The Last Military Lab, Anatoly Zak

- https://www.astronomy.com/space-exploration/soyuz-23-how-two-cosmonauts-almost-died-after-landing-back-on-earth/ 

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This is a preview of a bonus episode. To hear the rest of the episode and unlock more bonus content, support Failure To Launch on Patreon at any tier.

In the wake of Operation:REVIVAL, House Kurita embarked on a crash WarShip development program to try and match the naval superiority of the Clans. Today, we are joined by Dr. Randolph P. Checkers, one of the Periphery’s finest historians, to discuss one product of this program, the ill-fated Tatsumaki Class destroyer. 

The guy who made the Ultima games owns a space tank. We’re back with auto journalist and podcaster Victoria Scott to keep talking Lunokhod. In Part 2, we go over the journey of Lunokhod 2, lives saved in the Chernobyl Disaster, and the post-Soviet desperation that led to a Moon rover being sold for $68,500. 

Check out Victoria’s work here and listen to Tran Girlismo!

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Support FTL on Patreon to unlock bonus content and join our Discord community

SOURCES:

- Unmanned Missions toward the Moon, Anatoly Zak

- Soviet and Russian Lunar Exploration, Brian Harvey

- Tank on the Moon, 2007

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In a desperate bid to one-up the American Apollo missions, the Soviets built nuclear Moon tanks. We’re joined by auto journalist and podcaster Victoria Scott for a series on the Soviet Lunokhod rovers. In Part 1, we talk about the three-pronged Soviet lunar program, how they built the first space tank, and how you can stay warm in winter with a kilo of Polonium-210. 

Check out Victoria’s work here and listen to Tran Girlismo!

Find our merch store here

Support FTL on Patreon to unlock bonus content and join our Discord community

SOURCES:

- Unmanned Missions toward the Moon, Anatoly Zak

- Soviet and Russian Lunar Exploration, Brian Harvey

- Tank on the Moon, 2007

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On July 9th, 1962, the US Navy lit space on fire from Hawaii to New Zealand and fried a quarter of all active satellites in orbit. This week, we’re joined by engineer and friend of the show Ian to talk about Starfish Prime, the largest nuclear test ever conducted in space, and all the satellites that test killed.

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SOURCES:

- Burning the Sky, Mark Wolverton

- Dark Sun: Making of the Hydrogen Bomb, Richard Rhodes

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This is a preview of a bonus episode. To hear the rest of the episode and unlock more bonus content, support Failure To Launch on Patreon at any tier.

For June’s bonus, we’re joined by Ani Mejlumyan of the Lions Led By Donkeys podcast to talk all about The Lesson, a strange Soviet-Armenian animated short about environmentalism. Or possibly John Lennon. Or being so relentlessly horny that you short-circuit a Soviet censor’s brain. 

The earliest manned spaceflights were universally cramped, uncomfortable, and dangerous. What if your job was to do that multiple times a year underwater? This week, we're joined by Dr. Alan Jamieson, an accomplished marine biologist, veteran of many deep sea dives, and a host of the Deep Sea Podcast to compare our respective environments and see how they line up.

Check out the Deep Sea Podcast here!

Support FTL on Patreon to unlock bonus content and join our Discord community!

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More Ace Combat announcements are coming out and we're very excited about that, so we're unlocking our bonus episode from earlier this year on the Gleipnir flying stealthing aircraftlasermissilebattlecarrier.

The final boss of superweapon development. A weapon worth double digits of the GDP of Laesath. The universe's most powerful Blue Angel. This time, we're tackling a fan request topic: Diego Gaspar Navarro's Folly, the Gleipnir.

This is a preview of a bonus episode. To hear the rest of the episode and unlock more bonus content, consider supporting Failure To Launch on Patreon.

A lot of people know that the Soviets canceled their manned lunar program after losing the Moon Race to Apollo. What most don’t know is how that program ended: in a backroom, cloak-and-dagger palace coup that made one man the unquestioned King of Soviet Space. This week, we’re joined by Joe Kassabian to talk about The Coup of OKB-1 by 𝓜𝓞𝓜. 

Listen to Lions Led By Donkeys here and check out Joe’s upcoming book!

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Support FTL on Patreon to unlock bonus content and join our Discord community!

SOURCES:

- Challenge to Apollo, Asif Siddiqi

- Rockets & People 4, Boris Chertok

- Soviet and Russian Lunar Exploration, Brian Harvey

- RussianSpaceWeb, Anatoly Zak

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In April 2026, while the crew of Artemis 2 was still travelling around the Moon, the Trump administration put forward a budget proposal to gut NASA. This week, we’re joined by space policy analyst and host of the Talking Space podcast, Gene Mikulka, to go over the threats to space science and the grassroots resistance to the cuts. 

Check out the Talking Space podcast here and follow Gene on Bluesky!Astronauts for America interview

Find our merch store here!Support FTL on Patreon to unlock bonus content and join our Discord community!

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Alternate title: Railing Rockets. We're joined by Gareth Dennis, host of the RailNatter podcast, to talk about the intersections of rockets and trains. Gareth came prepared with a wonderful story of horses' arses and the NASA Railroad. Quinn, meanwhile, got sidetracked and wrote about how Soviet OKB head Sergei Korolev accidentally bankrupted a city.

Check out RailNatter and Gareth's other videos here!

Find our new merch store here!

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This is a preview of a bonus episode. To hear the rest of the episode and unlock more bonus content, consider supporting Failure To Launch on Patreon.

The only thing that can stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a motorcycle. We're back for part 2 of our series on Viktor Ilyin and the story leading up to the attempted assassination of Leonid Brezhnev in 1969.

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SOURCES:

- Into the Cosmos, Asif Siddiqi and James Andrews
- The First Cosmonaut Team, Colin Burgess and Rex Hall
- Soyuz-4 and -5 crews perform docking, spacewalk between ships, Anatoly Zak

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What would alien life look like? Would it look shockingly like an Ho-229 jet fighter? Would it be best researched by an AI with the mind of a preschooler? This week, we're joined by comic artist and speculative biology enthusiast Jay Eaton to talk about potential alien life and a really weird 2005 Discovery documentary, Alien Planet.

Check out Jay's webcomic, Runaway to the Stars, here and sign up for the Kickstarter of their book!

Find our new merch store here!

Support FTL on Patreon to unlock bonus content and join our Discord community!

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This is a preview of a bonus episode. To hear the rest of the episode and unlock more bonus content, consider supporting Failure To Launch on Patreon.

Cosmonaut Boris Volynov almost died twice in one week in January 1969. The first was when his Soyuz-5 capsule nearly burned up on reentry. The second was when a Soviet Army defector ambushed the motorcade carrying him, seven other cosmonauts, and Premier Leonid Brezhnev with akimbo Makarovs.

This is Part 1 of our series into the weird story of an attempted assassination of the leader of the Soviet Union.

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Support FTL on Patreon to unlock bonus content and join our Discord community!

SOURCES:
- Into the Cosmos, Asif Siddiqi and James Andrews
- The First Cosmonaut Team, Colin Burgess and Rex Hall
- Soyuz-4 and 5 crews perform docking, spacewalk between ships, Anatoly Zak

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ЩΉΛƬ DӨ YӨЦ ƧΣΣ?

On audience request, this time we're reviewing 2007's Sunshine. It's got a great cast, a legendary soundtrack, good reviews, financial failure, and it made Cillian Murphy an atheist.

This is a preview of a bonus episode. To hear the rest of the episode and unlock more bonus content, consider supporting Failure To Launch on Patreon.

No, a trio of astronauts on NASA's Skylab station did not stage a mutiny over poor working conditions. Yes, they would've been justified if they had staged a real mutiny. Today, we're tackling Skylab-4 and the legend of the First Strike in Space.

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Support FTL on Patreon to unlock bonus content and join our Discord community!

SOURCES:

- Skylab: The Human Side of a Scientific Mission

- https://nss.org/space-myths-busted-no-there-wasnt-a-mutiny-on-skylab/

- https://nss.org/i-finally-read-a-house-in-space-and-it-is-a-big-ol-mess/

This is a preview of a bonus episode. To hear the rest of the episode and unlock more bonus content, consider supporting Failure To Launch on Patreon.

In the late 70s, OKB-52 head Vladimir Chelomey decided to try and compete with the new Buran space shuttle project. He did it in secret, with stolen funds, and against express orders from the Kremlin. Today, we're talking with space history youtuber Alexander The OK about how it all somehow went wrong.

Watch Alex's content here!

Support FTL on Patreon to unlock bonus content and join our Discord community!

SOURCES:

- Ahead of his Time, Ivan Evteev

- The Proton Launcher, Christian Lardier and Stefan Berensky

- Energiya-Buran, Bart Hendrickz

- Raketoplan, RussianSpaceWeb

- LKS, RussianSpaceWeb

- Vladimir Chelomei, False Steps

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Like most stuntmen, Michael Hughes had a very confusing life and an overwhelming need to become famous at any cost. In this episode, we cover how that need drove him into conspiracy mania and got him killed flying a glorified pressure cooker.

Sources:
- DIY Rockets, Daredevils, and the Tragedy of Mad Mike Hughes [WIRED]
- "Mad Mike" Hughes Rejected Science and Chased Fame. It Killed Him. [Popular Mechanics]
- https://madmikehughes.com/

- Rocketman [2019]

CONTENT WARNING
Only 21 people were ever convicted for crimes at Mittelwerk. Only 1 was executed. This week, we're finalizing our series on the slave factory that produced Hitler's vengeance weapons. Joining us is genocide historian Joe Kassabian to lend his insight on how Mittelbau fit into the larger German camp network and slave labour scheme.

Listen to Joe talk more history on Lions Led By Donkeys

SOURCES:

Andre Sellier, A History of the Dora Camp: The Untold Story of the Nazi Slave Labor Camp That Secretly Manufactured V-2 Rockets
Jean Michel & Louis Nucera, Dora: The Nazi Concentration Camp Where Modern Space Technology Was Born and 30,000 Prisoners Died
Michael Neufeld, The Rocket and the Reich: Peenemünde and the Coming of the Ballistic Missile Era
Benny Grunfeld, A Teenager in Hitler's Death Camps
T D Dungan, V-2: A Combat History of the First Ballistic Missile

This is a preview of a bonus episode. To hear the rest of the episode and unlock more bonus content, consider supporting Failure To Launch on Patreon.

CONTENT WARNING

This week we're back into our series delving into Mittelwerk, the underground rocket factory / concentration camp that produced Hitler's "Vengeance Weapons". In Part 5, we look at the official establishment of the Mittelbau complex and the constellation of subcamps that sprung up around it.

SOURCES:

Andre Sellier, A History of the Dora Camp: The Untold Story of the Nazi Slave Labor Camp That Secretly Manufactured V-2 Rockets
Jean Michel & Louis Nucera, Dora: The Nazi Concentration Camp Where Modern Space Technology Was Born and 30,000 Prisoners Died
Michael Neufeld, The Rocket and the Reich: Peenemünde and the Coming of the Ballistic Missile Era
Benny Grunfeld, A Teenager in Hitler's Death Camps
T D Dungan, V-2: A Combat History of the First Ballistic Missile

The White Bird. The Bridge to Peace. Osea's greatest superweapon. Today, we're talking about the High-Altitude Mobile Spacecraft (HAMS) or as it's more commonly known: The Arkbird. We cover everything from its conception in the paranoid heyday of the Cold War, how it was created as a symbol of peace and cooperation, and its use as a weapon of war.

Sources:
- Arkbird Declaration (2008 G7 Meeting, LEO), Gaze Magazine
- Arkbird, Encyclopedia Strangereal
- The Circum-Pacific War, Encyclopedia Strangereal
- Scinfaxi-Class, Covert Shores
Theme song provided by DJ Danarchy

CONTENT WARNING

This week we're back into our series delving into Mittelwerk, the underground rocket factory / concentration camp that produced Hitler's "Vengeance Weapons". In Part 4, we take a look at the wider events in Nazi politics and the war in 1944 and how they all filter back to the tunnels under Nordhausen.

SOURCES:

Andre Sellier, A History of the Dora Camp: The Untold Story of the Nazi Slave Labor Camp That Secretly Manufactured V-2 Rockets
Jean Michel & Louis Nucera, Dora: The Nazi Concentration Camp Where Modern Space Technology Was Born and 30,000 Prisoners Died
Michael Neufeld, The Rocket and the Reich: Peenemünde and the Coming of the Ballistic Missile Era
Benny Grunfeld, A Teenager in Hitler's Death Camps
T D Dungan, V-2: A Combat History of the First Ballistic Missile

This is a preview of a bonus episode. To hear the rest of the episode and unlock more bonus content, consider supporting Failure To Launch on Patreon.

Welcome to the first Failure To Launch Questions & Answers episode! Pulling together questions asked on Patreon and our Discord, this is our chance to let the audience see the real Us.

CONTENT WARNING

We are back and continuing our series on Mittelwerk-Dora, the rocket factory concentration camp that churned out Hitler's Vengeance weapons. In Part 3, we cover the foundation of the factory itself, its first months of operation, and the conditions faced by slave labourers from all around Europe in the tunnels under Nordhausen.

SOURCES:

Andre Sellier, A History of the Dora Camp: The Untold Story of the Nazi Slave Labor Camp That Secretly Manufactured V-2 Rockets
Jean Michel & Louis Nucera, Dora: The Nazi Concentration Camp Where Modern Space Technology Was Born and 30,000 Prisoners Died
Michael Neufeld, The Rocket and the Reich: Peenemünde and the Coming of the Ballistic Missile Era
Benny Grunfeld, A Teenager in Hitler's Death Camps
T D Dungan, V-2: A Combat History of the First Ballistic Missile

This is a preview of a bonus episode. To hear the rest of the episode and unlock more bonus content, consider supporting Failure To Launch on Patreon.

We're back and joined by host of The Socialist Shelf podcast Jacob Dallas to talk about 2025's Mickey 17. We go through the plot, the philosophy and ethics of cloning, and how this movie's attitudes toward class issues and dystopia compare to director Bong Joon Ho's earlier works, say, Snowpiercer. The tardigrade teddy bears were an A+ addition, though.

The Soviet Everyman. The Mayor of Star City. The Crusader Against Hipsters. This week, we're joined by podcast host and comedian Milo Edwards to talk about Yuri Gagarin's colourful post-flight career: becoming a manosphere influencer and the divine role model for all Russian children.

Find Milo's work and comedy tour dates here!

Support FTL on Patreon to unlock bonus content and Discord access

Sources:

1. The Cosmonaut Who Couldn't Stop Smiling, Andrew Jenks

FTL theme song by DJ Danarchy

CONTENT WARNING
Continuing our exploration into the history of Mittelwerk, the death factory that produced Wernher Von Braun's V2 missiles, we cover the successes of the A4 missile bringing unwanted attention, the use of concentration camp labour at the Peenemunde missile facility, and Operation Hydra, the British plan to bomb that facility flat.
SOURCES:
Jean Michel & Louis Nucera, Dora: The Nazi Concentration Camp Where Modern Space Technology Was Born and 30,000 Prisoners Died
Michael Neufeld, The Rocket and the Reich: Peenemünde and the Coming of the Ballistic Missile Era
Benny Grunfeld, A Teenager in Hitler's Death Camps
T D Dungan, V-2: A Combat History of the First Ballistic Missile
Annie Jacobsen, Operation Paperclip

This is a preview of a bonus episode. To hear the rest of the episode and unlock more bonus content, consider supporting Failure To Launch on Patreon.

This week, Quinn, Chris, and Other Chris are joined by Josh Boerman and AJ Ditty of the Worst of All Possible Worlds podcast to talk about the famous 2000 flop of Titan AE - a showing so bad it killed Fox Animation Studios! We cover the movie itself, the time and atmosphere it was made in, and Roger Joseph Ebert's very horny (positive) review.

HUGE CONTENT WARNING FOR THIS SERIES
To start our retelling of the story of the Mittelwerk death factory, we cover the early history of the Nazi military rocket program. The VfR amateur rocket club, Walter Dornberger, and the internal politics and squabbling that created the infamous Peenemunde rocket test site.

SOURCES:
Jean Michel & Louis Nucera, Dora: The Nazi Concentration Camp Where Modern Space Technology Was Born and 30,000 Prisoners Died
Michael Neufeld, The Rocket and the Reich: Peenemünde and the Coming of the Ballistic Missile Era
Benny Grunfeld, A Teenager in Hitler's Death Camps
T D Dungan, V-2: A Combat History of the First Ballistic Missile
Annie Jacobsen, Operation Paperclip

This is a preview of a bonus episode. To hear the rest of the episode and unlock more bonus content, consider supporting Failure To Launch on Patreon.

Since 1963, it has been illegal under international law to place nuclear weapons in orbit. But the Soviets were brave enough to ask: "What is orbit, really?". This week, we're talking to Joe Kassabian (@JoeKassabian), host of the Lions Led By Donkeys Podcast, about OGCh or FOBS, the Soviet superweapon attempt to beat America's missile shield. And a whole lot of OKB politics.

Follow Lions Led By Donkeys here!

Support FTL on Patreon to unlock bonus content and Discord access

Sources:

1. The Soviet Fractional Orbital Bombardment System, Asif Siddiqi

2. http://www.astronautix.com/o/ogch.html

3. https://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/ogch.htm

Theme song by DJ Danarchy

As part of our ongoing series on space conspiracy theories, we brought in expert help to tackle one of the most virulent conspiracy theorists of our day. This week, Quinn, Chris, and Other Chris are joined by Dan Friesen of the Knowledge Fight podcast to talk about all the dumb things Alex Jones believes about space. What has happened in space, what will happen in space, and whether Alex will get his own planet.

Follow Knowledge Fight here!

Support FTL on Patreon to unlock bonus content and Discord access!

Theme song by DJ Danarchy

This is a preview of a bonus episode. To hear the rest of the episode and unlock more bonus content, consider supporting Failure To Launch on Patreon.

In early 1961, NASA was actually very well positioned to launch an American into space before the Soviets. Then they messed it up. This week, Quinn, Chris, and Other Chris take a look into what was happening at NASA in the months before Vostok 1 flew. We cover the infamous Four Inch Flight, the first chimp in space, and the debate over how safe a rocket should really be before strapping Alan Shepard into it.

Support FTL on Patreon and unlock bonus content and Discord access!

Sources:

• Beyond, Stephen Walker

• Redstone: The Missile That Launched America Into Space, Drew LePage

• Giving Mercury Its Wings, Drew LePage

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