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Mysterious Cold War Spacecraft Designs!

Posted by timothy on from the while-the-pentagon-was-buying-toilet-seats dept.

Kermit Woodall writes: "This is worth checking out: www.deepcold.com -- illustrated reports on US/Soviet cold war spacecraft designs that never saw completion." This site looks like a labor of love. I wonder what's being planned now that'll get scrapped but we won't know about till 2041 ...

3 of 176 comments (clear)

  1. Design Aesthetics? by hey! · · Score: 5

    This is going to sound kind of silly, but has anyone else noticed a preferences for angularly joined planar surfaces in US designs and smooth curved surfaces in Soviet designs?

    With the exception of the spacecraft that are meant to be stuck on top of a cylindrical rocket, the American designs featured on this site all look vaguely like modern stealth aircraft (which have good reason to look that way). Even compare the design of the Soviet lunar landar to the US LEM. The US LEM has a kind of geodesic look to it, wheras the Soviet design looks like an oblate spheroid.

    I've heard that the Russian spacecraft are rather more handbuilt than US ones; could this somehow be related to the different look of Russian craft? Or is there a kind of aesthetic sense which consciouly or unconsciously crept into the designs so they would look "cool"?

    Remember the old TV show, "Batman"? The Batmobile has the kind of angular design aesthetic that displaced the melted edge look of the 40's and 50's autos in the 60's. US aerospace designs seem to have undergone the same transition.

    --
    Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
  2. Buy me a Buran by gad_zuki! · · Score: 5

    Here's a link to the russian space shuttle Buran in english. And for you dot.com millionaires it looks like you can buy one, in russian though. Real photos, not any of that CG crap. This one is especially sexy, can we say Brrrr, comrade?

    This badboy's rocket, Energia, could lift 4 times the tonnage compared to the space shuttle's engine and booster, it even had an automatic landing program.

  3. flashback to Austin Powers... by DrEldarion · · Score: 5

    does that make you horny, baby?

    ack! don't hit me! it was just a joke!

    -- Dr. Eldarion --
    It's not what it is, it's something else.