Baikonur Cosmodrome Roof Collapses

mrbrown1602 writes: "The roof of the 260-foot-tall Baikonur Cosmodrome collapsed today in Almaty, Kazakhstan. The hangar, used to store the Buran space shuttle (Russia's abandoned shuttle program), was built in the 1960s and used for the Soviet moon program. Could this delay the Buran auction? More can be found at Yahoo!."

Comments

baikonur

[QuodEratDemonstratum]

Baikonur looks like an enormous complex. Which of the dozens of buildings was it?

Re:Delay the auction?

[stefanlasiewski]

Note, it wasn't Timothy who said this. The heartless comment was direct from mrbrown1602.

Perhaps Timothy should have picked a different submission, but it's really not his job to remove words from a chosen submission.

Erm

[Bitsy Boffin]

1) I wasn't aware that any Russian shuttle, let alone Buran itself was being auctioned - just did a search on /. and no sight of an article about it, except the one from mid last year when they auctioned a scaled static tester. 2) The Yahoo article says a shuttle of the type was in the hanger at the time of the incident, but doesn't say if it was Buran or not, I had a feeling Buran was in a covered but not enclosed storage. 3) People died in this, that's a little more important than any shuttle.

Re:Erm

[PD]

Your search didn't turn up this?

I also thought that Buran was a name like Soyuz or Apollo - applied to all ships of the class. That's different that our shuttles, which have unique names.

Re:Erm

[Bitsy Boffin]

Your search didn't turn up this? [slashdot.org]

from the article body....

This is a Bor-5 VKK (Spacecraft) and was used to test the aerodynamic characteristics of high altitude and extreme speed and heat on a space vehicle. It is an exact 1/8 scale model of the Russian "Buran" space shuttle.

It wasn't an auction of Buran, or any of the other shuttles, but of a test shuttle, not only not space capable but also 1/8th the size.

I also thought that Buran was a name like Soyuz or Apollo - applied to all ships of the class. That's different that our shuttles, which have unique names.

No. Buran is the name of the first shuttle that was completed and space-flight tested (it did an unmanned orbit and return - quite a feat, something the US shuttles have never done).

I believe number two, which was almost completed was called Pitchka, meaning "Little Bird", the remaining ones were not officially named (they were only partially completed).

Re:Erm

[PD]

But, the third one is consistently referred to as "the third Buran".

Re:Erm

[darkwhite]

No. Buran is the name of the first shuttle that was completed and space-flight tested

No. Buran was the name of the entire shuttle program (Buran-Energiya). The first orbiter was named Buran, too. (The Buran part of the program was kinda nameless while in development, and then they named it Baikal, but renamed it Buran at the last minute.) If it would ever come to multiple craft, I speculate they would just call them Buran-1, 2, and so on. They didn't have a history of naming units in a series with their own names.