Soviet Space Shuttle Found In Bahrain?

Funny... by daveschroeder · 2004-09-24 02:21 · Score: 2, Interesting

...how much that thing looks like the US space shuttle.

Re:Funny... by DaHat · 2004-09-24 02:26 · Score: 3, Interesting

I heard a former Russian engineer respond to a thought like that once... that the shape was governed by aerodynamics, that there are only so many configurations a functioning craft like that could take and they too independently came up with a similar one to the Americans.

I had also heard a NASA engineer respond a little later saying that if the Russians asked for the plans for the shuttle, that he doubted that NASA would have said no.

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Re:Funny... by pbranes · 2004-09-24 02:30 · Score: 5, Interesting

Check out the wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuttle_Buran
It looks like the US shuttle on the outside, but inside it is totally different. Interestingly enough, in many ways it is superior to the US space shuttle - for example if could do everything automated - including the landing.
Re:Funny... by perly-king-69 · 2004-09-24 02:30 · Score: 3, Funny

Just like Concorde and the Soviet TU144 aka Concordski!

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Re:Funny... by wwest4 · 2004-09-24 02:30 · Score: 5, Interesting

In an old defense industry job I had, they still had cold war era security warnings around the buildings. They were printed two-tone on posterboard with war propaganda cartoons and obnoxious fonts... one had pictures comparing our shuttle to theirs, and the F-15 to the Mig-29, etc, with the heading "Somebody Talked!" Since they were propaganda sheets, I don't know if there was any truth behind the idea that the Russians actually spied to get ideas for their shuttle, or just copied the basic airframe by looking at it. Looks pretty damning superficially, at least.
Re:Funny... by eutychus_awakes · 2004-09-24 02:32 · Score: 2, Insightful

It is, of course, no accident. If you look closely, you'll see that there are some subtle differences - Buran doesn't have main engines at the back, for example. All the launch/orbital injection thrust comes from the Energia booster. This actually improves the Buran's flight performance, as the US Shuttle has a weight/balance/stability issue with those heavy main engines at the back - precisely where you DON'T want weight if you're flying.

What I imagine happened is the Soviet engineering team was shown a picture of the US Shuttle during development, and that mental snapshot railroaded their thinking to produce what we have today. When it comes right down to it, engineers are the masters of copying other people's work - whether consciously or not. Once you see what a Space Shuttle looks like, it's hard to get your mind off that configuration. . .

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Re:Funny... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-09-24 02:39 · Score: 2

ive heard the same thing (on the history channel)

it is actually public record. i believe they got the plans in what would probably be considered espionage? but had they just filed a FOIA request they would have gotten it legally.

anyone remember the specific history?
Re:Funny... by BigGerman · 2004-09-24 02:43 · Score: 3, Interesting

realistically, it is not like stealing how a new car looks.
All the things that fly require a great deal of design "inside" to work well with what "outside". Similarities in COncorde and Tu144 and in Buran and "classic" shuttle are caused by aerodynamics. Both machines had to perform in identical environments so no wonder they come out looking the same. Kind of mechanical darvinism at work.
The only exception I know of is the B-29. Soviets got hold of several shut down over Europe and replicated it bolt-by-bolt (Tu-4?).
Re:Funny... by choas · 2004-09-24 02:58 · Score: 2, Funny

From the article: Buran piggybacked on an An-225 carrier

Kinda weird since there was only one An-225 ever built... should be the An-225 I think.

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Re:Funny... by HeghmoH · 2004-09-24 02:59 · Score: 4, Interesting

A minor correction; the B-29s that the Soviets used to create the Tu-4 came into their hands because they performed an emergency landing in the USSR after a raid on Japan. The B-29 never performed any missions in Europe. It was indeed as close to an exact copy as you could reasonably expect.

The OP's examples (F-15/MiG-29 and Shuttle/Buran) are pretty poor; they look similar only to one who is not familiar with them.

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Re:Funny... by phayes · 2004-09-24 03:09 · Score: 3, Interesting

Given that there were no western witnesses, nor videos nor pictures of Buran in the process of being launched, it is widely assumed that buran never achieved orbit & that the pictures being presented as the return from orbit are actually those of one of the atmospheric tests (like Enterprise).

Corrections welcome of course, but it's been 20 years & you'd have thought that someone would have turned up a picture if buran had really made it to orbit.

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Re:Funny... by AKAImBatman · 2004-09-24 03:14 · Score: 5, Interesting

Interestingly enough, in many ways it is superior to the US space shuttle - for example if could do everything automated - including the landing.

This is true. The Russians has NASA's 10+ years of experience behind them when they were working on the Buran. As such, they avoided several points which made the shuttle such a difficult craft. A few items:

- The Buran had no launch engines. All lift power was provided by the Energia it was strapped to.

- The Buran had more advanced computers with real-time control abilities instead of the "key in the program" design of the shuttle.

- The Buran stack was lighter due to the single-booster design.

- The complexity lost in the single-booster design meant that turn-around times would have been far faster than the shuttle.

- Future versions of the design would have made the Energia booster able to fly back to Earth and be reused.

All of this did come at a price, however. IIRC, the Russian program was about twice as expensive in R&D as the US program. As for the aerodynamics, my understanding is that the Russians did have stolen shuttle specs as a reference. Even if they didn't, they still had a large collection of photographs from which they could divine the areo-shell design. As a result, the Buran was nearly an exact aerodynamic copy of the space shuttle.

And for anyone who thinks that may have been a coincidence, think again. There was no need for the Russians to have built a large cargo craft. They already had excellent cargo boosters, so they could have built a man rated vehicle for much less. They built the Buran to compete with the shuttle on every point, but did it in such a way as to show that Russian design was "better".

That being said, I'd love to see the Energia program revitalized. With those rockets, we could have cut the costs of ISS construction several fold!

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Re:Funny... by Waffle+Iron · 2004-09-24 03:19 · Score: 2, Informative

Except that the US shuttle does an automated landing as well. Didn't you know that?
It can't fly the entire mission unmanned like the Buran did.
Re:Funny... by _Pablo · 2004-09-24 03:21 · Score: 2, Insightful

How is the "size a space shuttle 'has' to be" "obvious"? The size of the Space Shuttle was dictated by it's cargo bay which was in turn dictated by the Department of Defence.

The Russians could have decided to go with an orbital vehicle which was bigger or smaller than the Shuttle, however they decided to go almost exactly the same vehicle so that was the only way in which the size of the Buran was "obvious".

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Re:Funny... by AKAImBatman · 2004-09-24 03:23 · Score: 2, Informative

That's pretty easy. The facility was in Ukraine, and was pawned to the Ukrainian government in exchange for a loan. The Ukrainian government has been pretty poor about the upkeep, and the original orbiter was lost during a hanger collapse. The test vehicles were considered scrap and have been known to show up in several locations.

For example, Gorky Park in Moscow managed to snag one of the test vehicles as an attraction. If you ever go there, you can walk through the shuttle and take a 3D ride.

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Re:Funny... by AKAImBatman · 2004-09-24 03:27 · Score: 3, Informative

I'm aware of the Zenit strap-on boosters reuse. In addition, the Protons are still launched by Lockheed-Martin IIRC. But none of them compare to the amazing launch power of an Energia. Over a hundred metric tons could be put up in the Buran configuration. The Vulkan configuration could have done 150 metric tons. The Hercules configuration could have done a whopping 175 metric tons!!! That's only about a dozen tons shy of the current weight of the ISS! One launch!

Wow.

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Re:Funny... by twiddlingbits · 2004-09-24 03:39 · Score: 2, Interesting

The link to astronautix.com has a great history of the effort, how they copied the STS (without engines) and how they developed the N-1 Launch Vehicle. The test flight discussed seemed to a bit odd with a very eccentric orbit of like 150km x -20km, so they barely got into LEO. And I don't think they tested payload delivery either. The big debate was if the first flight was to be manned or unmanned. Unmanned won. I am assuming with the fall of the Soviet Union that the history of Buran is pretty solid by now free of the typical Soviet mis-information about success OR failure.
Re:Funny... by cluckshot · 2004-09-24 03:43 · Score: 5, Funny

Just to continue the funny discussions.

The size of the US Space Shuttle was actually determined by the limitations imposed by the Solid Rocket Boosters. --> The size of the SRB's was determined by the fact that the plant which made them was in Utah and there was a Rail Road tunnel in the way to the cape. --> The size of the tunnel was determined by the construction of the Transcontinental Rail Road in the 1860's and by the width of a Standard Gage Train Track. --> The width of a train track owes its history to the width of a standard mine cart or wagon from the old English days. --> The width of the wagon from old English days was determined by the width of the ruts in the old English roads from antiquity. --> The width of the ruts in old English roads was determined by the width of a Roman Chariot which by no coincidence was determined by the width of the two horses that pulled the chariots.

So the Roman Standards for War Chariots determined by the width of two horses rumps was a determining factor in the NASA and Russian Space Shuttles dimensions. The reason the Russion one was larger even by increments was it was intended to be bigger.

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Re:Funny... by Oddly_Drac · 2004-09-24 04:12 · Score: 2, Informative

At the risk of being labelled a pedant;

"the Pacific" - Not Europe

"airfield in Russia" - Also not Europe.

I actually knew about the B-29s that were downed, because it led to one of the more interesting aspects of the cold war in terms of the idea of scaling arms. Before the TU-4, there was no way for Russia to get to the US, and Russia was already reeling from the attack of a European superpower.

Regarding the reverse engineering, there was a story that Rolls Royce supplied a Merlin aero engine to China on technology transfer that they copied down to the last bolt, and there's some speculation that the EP-3E forced down in China was heavily catalogued before Lockheed Martin engineers were allowed in to dismantle and crate the plane.

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Re:Funny... by Phurd+Phlegm · 2004-09-24 04:25 · Score: 3, Informative

The size of the US Space Shuttle was actually determined by . . . .the width of a Roman Chariot which by no coincidence was determined by the width of the two horses that pulled the chariots.
False. As noted at Snopes. Just in case anyone thought the parent was not a joke ("I saw it on Slashdot! It must be true!") Note: this is not to say it isn't funny. I can neither confirm nor deny that the parent was funny.
Re:Funny... by Schemat1c · 2004-09-24 04:38 · Score: 4, Funny

Most jetliners too. Humans are there just to make the passengers warm and fuzzy.

Then why do we get so upset when we catch them drinking?

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Re:Funny... by ckaminski · 2004-09-24 05:42 · Score: 2, Interesting

Considering that the U.S. would have known that Buran was flying, in order to prevent WW3, NORAD almost certainly had opportunity to debunk the flight of Buran with orbital tracking data. At the height of the Cold War, you can be certain that any U.S. proof of failure of the Energiya-Buran to achieve orbit would have been leaked by the Administration if the Soviets tried to play of a technological coup and failed...
Re:Funny... by ckaminski · 2004-09-24 05:47 · Score: 4, Informative

All urban legends. Check snopes.com.
The boosters are made in Louisiana, and shipped by barge to Florida. No trains at all.

And the implicit stupidity of putting the SSME's in the Shuttle when there was no provision for engine restart, especially since that great fuel tank was already falling into the ocean. Yeah, the Soviets did it better in that regard.

As to tile technology, well that has matured some, but the fragility of the entire system is keeping NASA from any major overhauls in that regard. Had the Soviets actually continued with the program, they might just have built a flyback booster, aka, what the STS was supposed to be.

Ah, the perils of money...
Re:Funny... by Buran · 2004-09-24 05:49 · Score: 2, Interesting

It looks similar for several reasons:

1. The work was based in part on non-classified US shuttle information that was publicly available.

2. The US design was already tried, tested, and known to work. Why do something new when you can duplicate? The Soviets were very good at this; e.g. quickly copying the jet engines they were given during the 1950s, even going so far as to secretly collect metal shavings dropped on the floor by machining tools at the engine factory in England to find out what thte turbine blades were made from.

3. Convergence. This is an evolutionary principle which states that often, recurring similar solutions will arise spontaneously when two different organisms evolve to fill the same niche or accomplish the same goals, even if they evolved in separate parts of the world with no genetic exchange taking place. In other words, what engineers find works for a given goal in country/company A will also often come up as the best solution selected by engineers in country/company B. The principles of science and nature are absolutes the world over.

More on the history of Buran:

Buran - In Depth History

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Re:Funny... by foxhound01 · 2004-09-24 06:00 · Score: 2, Funny

because they don't share their drinks!

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Re:Funny... by mikerich · 2004-09-24 07:09 · Score: 2, Insightful

I'm a bit late for this, but I have a question about the Buran: I saw a documentary about the russian shuttle program on TV once, and they mentioned that the Buran was initially designed to be able to act as an orbital bomber.
The worry came out of the American decision to put a Shuttle base in Vandenberg CA. Flights from Vandenberg would have entered a polar orbit taking them over the Soviet Union. It was an immensely provocative idea that was bound to attract the attentions of the Soviet military.
The Soviets quickly worked out that the Shuttle had an enormous cross-range capability - that is it could be steered back to a landing, so they concluded that a Shuttle could be blasted out of Vandenberg and drop a weapon on the Soviet Union as part of a first strike, then return to Edwards Air Force base after a single orbit.
When the Politburo was informed of the American plans, Breschnev effectively turned the carefully planned Soviet strategy for reusable spacecraft on a dime and ordered that his engineers produce something equivalent to the American Shuttle. Which was a disaster as the Soviets had plenty of original ideas including the Spiral hypersonic aircraft which were in an advanced stage of development.
In reality the US Air Force had already concluded that the Shuttle would make a lousy weapons platform. Submarine launched missiles could achieve much more at a lower cost and were already being deployed. However, the USAF did want Vandenberg to put heavy reconnaisance satellites into polar orbit and perhaps use the Shuttle itself as a reconnaisance ship.
In the end, Vandenberg was mothballed after the Challenger disaster and no Shuttles ever took off from the enormously expensive facility.
So perhaps the Buran is a good reminder of how often we view the world in the light of our own worst fears.
Best wishes,
Mike.
Re:Funny... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-09-24 09:10 · Score: 3, Interesting

IAAA (astrophysicist) and I've personally seen the launch and landing videos and some of the telemetry from the flight. I'm convinced they launched, orbited and landed sucessfully. There are some videos are on the net if you look for them, but I'm not going to subject the already flakey server to /. . You can find them if you spend a little time looking. :)
Re:Funny... by Bob+Davis,+Retired · 2004-09-24 10:17 · Score: 2, Informative

The 'forced down' EP-3E was nothing less than a technology gift to China. Standard procedure is to make a water landing, bail out, and let the explosives inside (which are activated by being soaked in salt water) scuttle the plane. Laughable also were the reports of the crew valiantly chopping away at the 'computers' inside, so China couldn't acquire them. Anyone who knows anything would know that the crew was certainly only attacking monitors and keyboards, the real computers being stored in armored racks.

Nie by essreenim · 2004-09-24 02:22 · Score: 2, Funny

Njet. WE zont need ze bakup systems. We need moore thruzt .

Grain of Salt by RainbowBrite · 2004-09-24 02:22 · Score: 5, Interesting

I'm am definitely sceptical. I live in Bahrain and it is about three times the size of Washington DC. I think I would have heard of this. I do not see an exact location in the story. If I can find one I will go check it out.

Re:Grain of Salt by troggan · 2004-09-24 02:29 · Score: 5, Interesting

http://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/weltraum/0,1518 ,319521,00.html

(Sorry, only German)

The Location is Secret. The Shuttle is only "parked" there.

A German Museum has bought it and is waiting to ship it to Germany. The Museum has bought many things like this in the past (Tupolew TU-144, a Concord...)
Re:Grain of Salt by Simonetta · 2004-09-24 02:38 · Score: 3, Funny

I agree with the poster.

Bahrain is a small island about ten miles wide and twenty miles long. It is long known as an important trading center in the Gulf where fundamentalists don't impose arbitrary social restrictions on international business.

The idea that a space shuttle could fall from the sky and land here undamaged as opposed to any point in the millions of square miles of ocean on the Earth's surface is absurd. Suppose the navigational on-board computer was damaged and it missed landing in the Soviet Union. It still would have gone into the ocean or broken up.

Maybe someone bought it under the table and then was told that it was going to be used to create an international incident, so they towed it out to the desert where it would be found and assumed that it had fallen from the sky.
Maybe some enterprising Russians sold it to someone with a lot of money (hmmm, anyone like that in Bahrain?) and convinced them that they could use it to begin an Islamic space program. Then they towed it out to the desert before anyone found out how gullible and backward they were (or how much money they got taken for).
Re:Grain of Salt by IAR80 · 2004-09-24 03:02 · Score: 2, Interesting

Wasn't spiegel just another tabloid? If it is not it is certainly going in that direction.

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Re:Grain of Salt by troggan · 2004-09-24 03:12 · Score: 3, Informative

No, it's not a tabloid. Its a "serious" weekly political magazine.
Re:Grain of Salt by nutshell42 · 2004-09-24 04:45 · Score: 3, Informative

Think of it as the German Time magazine

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How did I get here? by idontgno · 2004-09-24 02:22 · Score: 2, Funny

What's funny is that noone knows how it ended up there.

Uhhh... it flew?

OK, not under its own power. But it had to be flown, right? So that's how.

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Re:How did I get here? by Nexus7 · 2004-09-24 02:33 · Score: 2, Insightful

There was a transporter aircraft, a modified Antonov An-124, I think. Or a Myasischev (sp?). The CCCP definitely had it's pick, the russians always had great transport planes.
Re:How did I get here? by Itsik · 2004-09-24 02:37 · Score: 4, Interesting

What scares me is that if they lost such a huge spacecarft can you imagine what else they could have easily "misplaced" without anyone knowing???

Is this the one that overran the runway way back w by pillageplunder · 2004-09-24 02:22 · Score: 4, Interesting

Folks remember the pics back in the 80's of one of the prototypes sitting bogged in mud at the end of a runway taxi test?

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Parking by Nos. · 2004-09-24 02:23 · Score: 5, Funny

What's funny is that noone knows how it ended up there
You ever tried to parallel park one of those things... trust me its easier just to park it in the desert.

This must be the fabled... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-09-24 02:23 · Score: 3, Funny

...Noah's space shuttle.

Space Camp by cyb3rllama · 2004-09-24 02:23 · Score: 2, Funny

Hey, that's the shuttle simulator I used at Space Camp back in 1987. ;) How'd it get out there?

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Trolls by Ghotli · 2004-09-24 02:25 · Score: 2, Funny

God, here come the "In Soviet Russia" trolls.

the internal pic begs for captioning... by CheechBG · 2004-09-24 02:25 · Score: 3, Funny

"So which one of these buttons turns on the hyperdrive? I need to get the hell out of Tatooine... /watched way too much Star Wars the past few days :)

seriously by ilovelinux · 2004-09-24 02:27 · Score: 2, Informative

tell me this wouldn't be the coolest find ever. One day you're walking out in the wilderness and you find a spacecraft.

If they did actually abandon it out in the desert (which I find unbelievable, you think they would lock it up in a hanger or something), it's probably been completely gutted for the cool parts anyway.

Did this thing actually get used at all?

Re:seriously by Mateito · 2004-09-24 03:06 · Score: 2, Funny

it's probably been completely gutted for the cool parts anyway.
If you look carefully at the photo, you can see that the wheels have been taken and that the shuttle is actually up on small piles of bricks.
Also the hood ornament's been torn off and the driver's side window smashed to take at the radio (which since a small shunt in the late 80s has been able to pick up AM anyway, so that's not too much of a loss).

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Lost? by BannedfrompostingAC · 2004-09-24 02:28 · Score: 3, Informative

How could it be "lost"? Bahrain is only about 650km squared in size.

Stop press! by grm_wnr · 2004-09-24 02:28 · Score: 5, Informative

Well, in the meantime I have a non-machine translation of the Bild article ready. Note that I seem to have my facts wrong: 1. It IS known how the shuttle ended up there 2. The fate of the other three prototypes is known. This is due to the fact that I actually got hold of this information in a newspaper (the Welt, and grabbed the first relevant link I could find. The newspaper article had some facts quite different, and I don't know which source to trust more. Anyway, here is the Bild text:

German tourist wants to buy lost russian shuttle Russian spacecraft lands in arab desert by DITTMAR JURKO (image caption: The russian shuttle was deemed lost for years und was now found in the arab desert) Moscow - It was the most ambitious project of the russian space program, code named "Buran" (snowstorm): The first space flight with a russian space shuttle! The flight was a success, but experts have been wondering ever since where the four prototypes went. Now BILD readers have found one of the russian space gliders in the arab desert! Volker Hartmann (54) from Schaumburg, Chris G. Maier (32) from Düsseldorf and Kai Niedermeier (39) from solingen met the crown prince of the island state Bahrain, Salman bin Hamad al Khalifa (34). He told him of the hiding place: "We drove near the border to Saudi-Arabia in a jeep. There was the shuttle - covered and abandoned." The glider is the "Buran 002", one of the four airworthy space ships of this type. 36,67 metrs long and 17,37 meters high. She took off 25 times. 1993 the space project was cancelled. A Saudi bought the shuttle, but forgot it in the desert. And the other spacecraft? One was destroyed, one dismantled, the mothership is now on display in Moscow's Gorky Park. One of the german finders now wants to buy the "Buran 002" for 300,000 dollars, and go on a world tour with it: "The sheik approves".

Re:Stop press! by troon · 2004-09-24 02:37 · Score: 2, Funny

Volker Hartmann (54) from Schaumburg

I preferred Google's "foam castle" translation of Schaumburg.

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Re:Stop press! by MonkeyCookie · 2004-09-24 02:44 · Score: 4, Informative

According the Spiegel website (yes, I can read German), the shuttle was purchased by the Automobile and Aerospace Museum in Sinsheim, near Heidelberg. That sounds quite plausible to me, as that museum has a very impressive collections of cars inside the museum and a large collection of aircraft sitting outside the museum. Some of the aircraft are open to visitors to walk into.

If anyone find themselves in southwestern Germany, and is interested in this sort of thing, I would strongly recommend going to visit this museum. It was quite interesting even to someone like me. Even though I don't find cars interesting and aircraft only mildly interesting, I still enjoyed this museum. Seeing the full-size aircraft in person instead of in pictures is a worthwhile experience. The presence of the Buran shuttle would make it even better.

Buran history by Leomania · 2004-09-24 02:28 · Score: 5, Interesting

I read with great interest the history of Buran on astronautix.com. Man, once I found that site I burned several hours reading about the N1 program, Buran, just tons of Soviet-era information that I had no idea was out there. Amazing that the N1 engines were bought by an American company and will end up being used; great story about how they were squirreled away after being ordered destroyed.

I was amazed to learn that Buran flew into space completely by remote control. Kudos to the Russians for this feat.

- Leo

--
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Re:Who? by stratjakt · 2004-09-24 02:28 · Score: 2, Funny

He's a character in the comic strip "Family Circus", along with Ida Know, and Notme.

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In the mean time by triptolemeus · 2004-09-24 02:28 · Score: 2, Informative

I already posted this one here two days ago, but it got rejected, no wonder that things have happened. The shuttle already got sold to the German Sinsheimer Museum (for cars and technik). More info here. Sorry it is in german and my company doesn't allow translations.

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It was stolen by trailerparkcassanova · 2004-09-24 02:30 · Score: 5, Funny

Some cosmonauts left it idling in front of a convenience store while they ran in for some smokes and carbs. When they came out it was gone. Apparently it ended up in a Bahrain chop shop and the parts ended up on eBay. The pictures tell the rest of the story.

Re:It was stolen by b1t+r0t · 2004-09-24 03:30 · Score: 2, Funny

Didn't they make a movie about that?
Dude! Where's My Shuttle?

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Not Noone again! by AyeRoxor! · 2004-09-24 02:30 · Score: 2, Funny

What's funny is that noone knows how it ended up there.

I went to school with Chuck Noone. He was always getting in these kinds of situations... I'll have to track that ol' devil down...

/no-one

Broken down... by elcheesmo · 2004-09-24 02:30 · Score: 2, Funny

Was there a white cloth tied to the antenna or door?

Re:But... by stratjakt · 2004-09-24 02:30 · Score: 3, Funny

For that matter how did a coconut get to england? Are you suggesting that coconuts are migratory?

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How'd It Get There? by The+Dobber · 2004-09-24 02:31 · Score: 4, Funny

Christ, haven't you guys ever watched Close Encounter Of The Third Kind?

How can I? by robpoe · 2004-09-24 02:33 · Score: 4, Funny

How do I buy it for $5 (10000000 rubles) and bring it home? It would make a cool yard ornament, definately a sort of "I'm a better redneck than you -- instead of cars on blocks, I have a RUSSIAN SPACE SHUTTLE, BIAOTCH!!!".. *sigh* oh well...Guess not..

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Re:How can I? by 91degrees · 2004-09-24 03:23 · Score: 2, Funny

And you can find a currency converter here.

The second half of the story by teslar · 2004-09-24 02:35 · Score: 5, Informative

Also at the Spiegel, the shuttle in question appears to have been bought by a German Museum and the reason why it's in Bahrain is because it was supposed to be shown at an exhibition in 2002. However that never happened and a legal struggle resulted, which is apparently still going on and left the shuttle stranded in Bahrain, the exact location being kept secret.

Ebay by bp2179 · 2004-09-24 02:35 · Score: 5, Funny

Lets see how long this takes before it ends up on Ebay.

1 slightly used space shuttle prototype.....

Likely a Structural Test Article by Spencerian · 2004-09-24 02:35 · Score: 5, Informative

This find is likely similar to the STS structural test article vehicle--an engineering-exact duplicate of an Orbiter vehicle used for tests in the early days of the Space Shuttle program in America. The Russians needed something similar, obviously.

Our STA, STA-099, was retrofitted after it was clear that retrofitting the test Orbiter Enterprise would be too costly. So, STA-099 become OV-099, Challenger. There might have been much gnashing of teeth to have seen Enterprise destroyed on that cold January day in 1986 for some fanboys than Challenger, I would think--not to belittle that death of a vehicle or its crew would seem any more or less important based on its name.

Everything you want to know about the Buran program in Russian, amongst many other space information, can be found at this popular and comprehensive web site.

--
Vos teneo officium eram periculosus ut vos recipero is.

What the Russians didn't publicize by kippy · 2004-09-24 02:36 · Score: 3, Interesting

I just told a coworker who grew up in Romania under the Soviet influence about this. He said that it was sort of common knowledge that Yuri Gagarin was by far not the first human in space. Rather, he was the first one to come back.

Of course, there's no way to prove that one way or the other but it does illustrate the fact that the soviets didn't have the "burden" of a free press to publicize when things went really haywire as this shuttle seems to have.

--
Blaze a trail to the New World

Re:What the Russians didn't publicize by madprof · 2004-09-24 02:54 · Score: 2, Interesting

If this is the case then how come the western media has not picked up on these stories before?
This would be a significant change to our established history of space exploration.
Re:What the Russians didn't publicize by kippy · 2004-09-24 02:56 · Score: 2, Interesting

Like I said, it may or may not be true.

Even if it were true, the Soviets would have kept it under wraps. NASA underwent a lot of public crap whenever something blew up on the launching pad. In Soviet Russia all they had to do was tell Pravda to shut up and their space program looked flawless. If it never got out of Russia, how would we find out about it?

--
Blaze a trail to the New World
Re:What the Russians didn't publicize by dapyx · 2004-09-24 03:08 · Score: 3, Interesting

If this is the case then how come the western media has not picked up on these stories before?
Because all the proofs are burried deep in the archives of the KGB.
However, the Russian media wrote about this (in English)
As 40 years have passed since Gagarin's flight, new sensational details of this event were disclosed: Gagarin was not the first man to fly to space.
Three Soviet pilots died in attempts to conquer space before Gagarin's famous space flight, Mikhail Rudenko, senior engineer-experimenter with Experimental Design Office 456 (located in Khimki, in the Moscow region) said on Thursday.
According to Rudenko, spacecraft with pilots Ledovskikh, Shaborin and Mitkov at the controls were launched from the Kapustin Yar cosmodrome (in the Astrakhan region) in 1957, 1958 and 1959. "All three pilots died during the flights, and their names were never officially published," Rudenko said.
He explained that all these pilots took part in so-called sub- orbital flights, i.e., their goal was not to orbit around the earth, which Gagarin later did, but make a parabola-shaped flight. "The cosmonauts were to reach space heights in the highest point of such an orbit and then return to the Earth," Rudenko said.
According to his information, Ledovskikh, Shaborin and Mitkov were regular test pilots, who had not had any special training, Interfax reports. "Obviously, after such a serious of tragic launches, the project managers decided to cardinally change the program and approach the training of cosmonauts much more seriously in order to create a cosmonaut detachment," Rudenko said.

--
I'm sorry, the number you have dialed is an imaginary number. Please rotate your phone 90 degrees and dial again.
Re:What the Russians didn't publicize by hoofie · 2004-09-24 03:13 · Score: 2, Informative

This page would tend to indicate that the rumours are not true. If they were, I'm sure by now the truth would have come out.
Re:What the Russians didn't publicize by benito27uk · 2004-09-24 03:18 · Score: 3, Interesting

That's true, but Alexei Leonov and David Scott's autobiography Two Sides of the Moon has no mention of anyone getting into space before Gagarin.
Leonov is very frank in talking about the censorship that occurred during this period and has no reason to perpetuate any lies.

Buran in Sydney by G4from128k · 2004-09-24 02:39 · Score: 4, Interesting

We toured the Buran in Sydney when it was an ill-fated tourist attraction. It was a very nice exhibit, video on Soviet space accomplishments and it included sitting in the actual cockpit.

The Buran in Sydney lacked the navigation avionics, leaving a rather large empty space in the deck below the cockpit. The Russians removed that before they exported the shuttle. The guide claimed the avionics were heavily borrowed from Russian ICBMs and had even included targeting data for U.S. sites.

It's sad that Buran failed as a tourist attraction.

--
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.

Re:Buran in Sydney by dbarlett · 2004-09-24 05:31 · Score: 2, Interesting

I was in Sydney in August of 2001, read about Buran, and thought "I have to see this." We parked at a casino and spent almost half an hour tracking down the tent where they were keeping it. We were the only people there, and there was a lone ticket-taker/tour guide who left us to watch a Russian/English hurrah-for-Soviet-space-program movie, followed by actually going to see the shuttle. Sitting in the cockpit was an extra $20 (US), IIRC, which I didn't elect to do. Overall an interesting experience.

Will be shown at the Technik Museum at Sinsheim by NoSuchGuy · 2004-09-24 02:39 · Score: 5, Informative

This article (in german) reports that the Technik Museum Sinsheim has bought the shuttle for an undisclosed six figure sum.

The Technik Museum Sinsheim already has a Concorde, the Tupolev TU144 (soviet counterpart of the Concorde), and a Porsche 959, "The blue Flame" and a lot of others tech stuff.

The shuttle will be kept in good company :-)

--
Grundgesetz * 23. Mai 1949 - 30. November 2007 - http://www.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de/

oh my god. by flacco · 2004-09-24 02:42 · Score: 4, Funny

Boy, what I would give to be able to sit in that seat and flip those switches!

yeah, then you could go watch spongebob in your footie-pajamas, and drink hi-c from your sippie-cup!

actually, that sounds kind of fun.

--
pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.

Re:Cover up by mrgreen4242 · 2004-09-24 02:49 · Score: 2, Funny

This is the problem with Slashdot... I can't tell if you are being funny or are serious and one of those paranoid conspiracy theory types. We need a mod catagory for that, like +1 crazy, or -1 depending how you look at it.

Check out "the supermagnifying glass" by Lispy · 2004-09-24 02:52 · Score: 3, Informative

on the lower right corner of that Bild.de link. ;-)

Now you can see all those small details Nasa doesnt want you to know about. Geez, this must be the lamest incarnation of digital zoom I ever saw. But then again, Bild is germanies most unreliable newssource anyway so I have to wonder why it was linked to on /.

including the landing. by dpilot · 2004-09-24 02:53 · Score: 5, Informative

The shuttle not being able to land was a conscious decision. Opening the landing gear doors is one of those actions that cannot be undone except in the service bay. When the Shuttle was being designed, they were quite frightened about the way computers had to be integrated, and their dependence on them. Hence the fabled 5-way, multiple fail system. The thing was designed to be recoverable from just about *any* computer glitch. But a glitch that opened the doors too early would cause a bad day, with no chance of recovery. They left the decision to open the landing gear up to a human.

Other than that, the shuttle can land automatically, too.

--
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.

Re:including the landing. by the_Bionic_lemming · 2004-09-24 03:03 · Score: 2, Informative

http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=10518

--
_ _ _ Go for the eyes Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!
Re:including the landing. by Buran · 2004-09-24 05:54 · Score: 3, Informative

There is no need for the orbiter to be able to close its gear doors in flight because it performs a "dead stick" (unpowered) landing with no opportunity for a go-around. Thus, systems meant to close the doors would be unnecessary dead weight. Instead, systems were designed and fitted that are designed to ensure that the gear goes down, up to and including explosives that will force the gear into the down position. The bay doors and gear are mechanically linked, so that if the door is opened the gear is automatically pulled into position.

The gear is lowered near the end of the flight, just before touchdown, far later than is done on other aircraft. If you have ever flown on a commercial or private plane, you will know that the aircraft slows down and begins to noticeably rumble when the gear goes down, due to the large amount of drag it creates. Minimizing the amount of time the gear is down maximizes the chance that the pilots can correct for any final-approach anomalies.

A gear door opening early might be a problem but not unrecoverable unless it opened far too early during descent, and a gear door that opened too late could cause a partial or total belly landing which could possibly (not definitely; it would depend on the situation) cause the unrecoverable loss of the orbiter. But the crew would probably survive, especially since they train for such ditchings.

--
i am a soviet space shuttle

Re:Looks like it's made of Legos. by penginkun · 2004-09-24 02:58 · Score: 2, Insightful

Wow, who pissed in YOUR cheerios, bub?

Wanker.

Find Treasure! by Plocmstart · 2004-09-24 03:10 · Score: 2

I'm glad someone's metal detector has finally found their treasure that those ads always promise. ;)

Manual translation of Spiegel article by Apogee · 2004-09-24 03:11 · Score: 5, Informative

Here's a manual translation of the article. It may not be very elegant; I didn't have much time ...

Soviet space shuttle: Curious discovery at the persian gulf

While shooting footage for the formula 1 race in Bahrain, a TV crew from Düsseldorf by chance stumbled over a rumour about a russian space shuttle, said to be located since some time in that region, without anybody taking an interest in it. A little while later, the Germans were standing in front of a relic of the soviet space shuttle program of the eighties: A vehicle strongly resembling the US shuttles. It may be a prototype version of the space shuttle "Buran" ("Snowstorm".

With this shuttle project, at times employing up to 30'000 people, the soviets wanted to catch up with the americans in manned space flight. But the project was not under a good sign. Already at its inception in the late seventies it was clear that the Soviet union actually had no use for a re-usable space craft. "Buran", the name of the sole soviet shuttle ever to make it into space, was a pure prestige project - and an extremely expensive one at that.

November 15 1988, after more than ten years of development, Buran took off for the first and last orbital flight, without crew. This flight ended according to plan after two orbits of the earth. One year later, the iron curtain came down - and with it, the major part of funding for soviet space exploration.

[CAPTION]: TV producer Maier in the cockpit of the shuttle: Relic from the soviet union

While the "Buran" shuttle was able to carry more payload than US shuttles and could be controlled remotely, neither its on-board computer nor its life support system ever worked satisfactory. The space ship was decomissioned, and was destroyed in May 2002, when the ceiling of a hangar in the Baikonur space center crashed. A second shuttle named "Ptitchka" ("Little bird"), which was completed in 1990, was never used: The program was stopped officially in 1993.

Besides the two soviet shuttles that were ready to fly, there were said to be three more, unfinished, shuttles, and a series of test versions. Today, one is being used as a restaurant in Moscow, another was sold by Russia to Sydney as an exhibition piece for the 2000 olympic games. "Ptitchka" is said to be in Baikonur still.

It is not clear which model was found at the persian gulf by the TV crew from Düsseldorf. Nobody knows, how this museum piece ended up there. According to TV producer Chris Maier, this could be the model once located in Sydney. This notion is supported by the fact that the shuttle supposedly performed 25 atmospheric test flights. Various reports claim that the Russians delivered the aerodynamic test plane "Buran OK-GLI" to Australia, which was used to test the automatic landing system of the space shuttles. For this reason, the shuttle was the only test variant equipped with engines.

"We need to get confirmation on which version this is", concedes Maier. However, the shuttle has already attracted a potential buyer: According to Volker Hartmann, a member of the TV crew, German enterpreneur Kai Niedermeier, who is doing business in the gulf states, wants to do a world tour with the space shuttle - and auction parts of its hull on the internet.

Summary of the cockpit dialogue that day by 192939495969798999 · 2004-09-24 03:11 · Score: 4, Funny

A poorly translated summary of the dialogue regarding the shuttle's untimely disappearance...

Slava: Zutroy, what is red light?
Zutroy: Red light is bad.
Slava: Was it last vector?
Zutroy: Last vector, yes. Last vector is bad.
Slava: Light is bad, vector is bad, what is good?
Zutroy: Chance of hit desert is good.
Slava: Pass the Stolchinaya.
Zutroy: Yes, Stochinaya also good.

--
stuff |

Re:Cover up by ZosX · 2004-09-24 03:13 · Score: 2, Insightful

This is the problem with Slashdot... I can't tell if you are being funny or are serious and one of those paranoid conspiracy theory types. We need a mod catagory for that, like +1 crazy, or -1 depending how you look at it.We don't need a mod category for this.

Dude. Lighten up. Its a joke. Laugh. Life doesn't have to be so fscking serious all the time.

zosX

--
zosxavius photography

Re:it goes back in time awhile........ by gadget+junkie · 2004-09-24 03:17 · Score: 2, Interesting

....to the fifties and sixties, when the US was building prototype lifting bodies, primarily for the military aspect: http://www.astronautix.com/project/nasgbody.htm.

see also this: http://www.astronautix.com/craft/dynasoar.htm.
by the time the soviet union was developing the buran, these designs were well known in their basic terms; they might as well have obtained some classified data by the usual avenues.

THe key issue tough, and one that plagues the shuttle as well to this day, is the thermal shock of reentry and the cumbersome combination of tiles that covers the whole surface. in the article, it is stated that this, apart from the sensor tecnhology required, was the major anticipated obstacle to a full development of the Dynasoar military lifting body.

--
"If a boss demands loyalty, give him integrity. But if he demands integrity, give him loyalty." (John Boyd, 1927-1997)

Is the Russian gov making good money? by wikinerd · 2004-09-24 03:22 · Score: 2, Interesting

If this story is true, then it may be possible that the Russian government is making good money by selling its old space shuttles to rich oil businessmen! :-)

Global domination plot.. by regjoe · 2004-09-24 03:23 · Score: 2, Funny

Hey Rocky, whatch me pull a Russian Space Shuttle out of my hat! Boris & Natasha would not be pleased... Next weeks episode: Moon over Buran OR This thing was using DOS 3.2?

--
Indecision may, or may not be my problem! -- Jimmy Buffett

revolutionary WIKIPEDIA! (Re:Funny...) by perler · 2004-09-24 03:26 · Score: 2, Interesting

and look, isn't that great that the story mentioned some minutes ago here and published some hours ago in spiegel-online.de is already mentioned in wikipedia? this beast is revolutionary..

PAT

--
SEO Test: TIGI und SEBASTIAN - Online Shop - V

Location of the Buran's by Oriumpor · 2004-09-24 03:29 · Score: 2, Informative

One is on display as a park for children.

One is under a pile of rubble

One has been sold to the Germans.

And one is still missing.

Re:The shape is the same by number6x · 2004-09-24 03:45 · Score: 5, Informative

The shape is the same, but not too much else.

The American (US and Canada) shuttle had integrated engines. Fuel fed from the big external tank into those engines during lift off. Buran was not designed with those engines. Buran was to use a modified Energia rocket to lift into space. This is a major design difference that does not show in the shots here.

This design by the soviets lowered the cost of developing their shuttle, and would give Buran more cargo space and load capacity. However the soviet design would need new engines for each launch. The American design reuses the engines for several launches.

The Soviets could have copied the general shape of the shuttle in order to implement a known working aerodynamic design. This is not the same thing the first poster is saying. They could have spent money developing a completely new working aerodynamic design, but chose to copy instead of innovate. The USSR wasn't exactly swimming in cash during this period, so I can see why they chose the cheaper route.

Where'd it come from? by khellendros1984 · 2004-09-24 03:45 · Score: 2, Informative

My father (who's been deployed several times in the last couple years =/ ) sent me pics of the shuttle over a year ago. He says it's in some sort of salvage yard, visible from the harbor. Sold for scrap when the USSR fell or some such. So I'm not sure, but that's what I've been told.

--
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.

In other news... by Telepathetic+Man · 2004-09-24 03:47 · Score: 2, Funny

Ashton Kutcherkov, was found face down in the sand near by. Upon questioning, her replied with heavy vodka breath, "Dude! Where's my Buran?"

--
Just because you can, does not mean you should.

WTF...? by WebCowboy · 2004-09-24 04:17 · Score: 2, Funny

... cause when I think how many people are gonna read about this, and how many of those will just be flat out believers of whatever bull-crap story blah blah...

This is exactly what happened when americans elected Bush to be president... blah blah...

That's some baaaaad-ass acid you've been hittin' dude. I'm curious though...what are your thoughts on the Apollo missions?

Buran in Bahrain by Anonymous Coward · 2004-09-24 04:20 · Score: 2, Informative

here :
http://www.spacetoday.net/Summary/978

News briefs: June 15-16
Posted: Mon, Jun 17, 2002, 6:27 AM ET (1027 GMT)

A test model of the Buran space shuttle will be featured during a festival this summer in the Persian Gulf nation of Bahrain, RIA Novosti reported this weekend. The Buran will be the centerpiece of an exhibit on Russian achievements in space exploration. The Buran had previously been in Sydney, Australia for an exhibit that eventually closed because of a lack of visitors.

It WASN'T remote control by melted · 2004-09-24 04:46 · Score: 2, Informative

It flew up there and returned all by itself, on autopilot. No one else managed to pull this off ever since.

Re:The shape is the same by Buran · 2004-09-24 05:35 · Score: 3, Informative

The Soviet system places the main engines on the Energia booster because the system is powerful enough to do this. That reduces some complexity in the orbiter due to it not having to carry the main propulsion system and it also increases the maximum payload capacity. The Buran orbiter only carries the engines required for achieving the final orbit, on-orbit maneuvering, and retrofire (for the US system, these are the OMS and RCS engines -- two OMS engines and 44 RCS jets.)

See Buran - In Depth History for more info.

--
i am a soviet space shuttle

Re:Looks like it's made of Legos. by CrazyTalk · 2004-09-24 06:55 · Score: 2, Funny

Why does every slashdot story end up as a discussion over the proper plural form of Lego? You say two fish, I say two fishes.

Slashdot Mirror

Soviet Space Shuttle Found In Bahrain?

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