Soviet Shuttle Buran Found In a Junk Heap

gruenz noted the somewhat sad photo slideshow showing what appears to be the Soviet Space Shuttle Buran, lying in a Moscow suburb junk heap. Of course I don't read Russian, so it might also be a carnival ride rusting.

Comments

They should be thankful

[Danathar]

That they did not spend a crazy amount of money on what ended up in the U.S. as a net negative to what we COULD of had. The shuttle had some success and worked but it was way more expensive than it was sold to be and ended up tethering the U.S. to low earth orbit for decades instead of moving on like we should have to a permanent moon settlement and Mars.

Re:They should be thankful

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

...ended up tethering the U.S. to low earth orbit for decades instead of moving on like we should have to a permanent moon settlement and Mars.

I'll take the Hubble Space Telescope and the myriad of other LEO scientific/communication satellites over your pie-in-the-sky Buck Rogers fantasies any day of the week.

Re:They should be thankful

[Anonymous Coward]

No, the laws of physics, reality, chemistry,biology and engineering "tethered" us to LEO. There's nothing out there, and it's hard to get there. Who cares? The South Pole is millions of times more hospitable to humans than LEO, but no one gets bent out of shape that we haven't colonized it. You Space Nutters are sad. Get over it. Oh, and it's "COULD *HAVE* HAD", not "of". This is elementary.

Re:They should be thankful

[samkass]

That they did not spend a crazy amount of money on what ended up in the U.S. as a net negative to what we COULD of had

In many ways, Buran was what the US could have had. It had no SSMEs, which remain one of the most complex engine systems ever built. It had no solid rocket boosters, which caused Challenger's demise and severely limited the failure modes of the vehicle. And it could be operated entirely by computer and remote control, meaning for many missions no crew or their equipment need consume launch weight.

It lacked capabilities that Shuttle had, but it was a pretty reasonable compromise that would have probably had significantly higher return on investment.

Re:They should be thankful

[Anonymous Coward]

We would have had all of that and a lot more without the shuttle.

At some point, someone will mention the shuttle mission to fix Hubble's focus, without mentioning that we could have built and launched another five Hubbles for the cost of that mission alone.

Face it: the shuttle was pure PR; they wanted something that looked like a plane. Re-usability looked good on paper but it cost more per launch than using disposable vehicles, and that's without even taking the massive manufacturing cost into account.

Re:They should be thankful

[elrous0]

"Space Nutters," now THAT'S a show name! We'll get Ron Moore to produce, Scott Bakula to star, and Syfy to air. Quick, Jimmy, get me Hollywood on the phone!

Re:They should be thankful

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually failure modes are basically the same. A result of having a vehicle attached to the side of the booster that you can't easily eject at lower speeds and altitudes and expect it to glide anywhere. BTW, the boosters never need to be replaced (they still use parts from the first shuttle missions, just with better 'O' rings)

The SSME's, while complex, saved money in the long run. Building new rocket engines is not cheap. Having a set of re-usable engines made perfect sense for a re-usable vehicle, and the complex throttling ability was needed for Astronaut comfort/safety.

Re:They should be thankful

[Anonymous Coward]

You meant to say "...what we could HAVE had" there, correct? Because, well, saying "could of" makes no sense.

Re:They should be thankful

[Anonymous Coward]

Great idea, we can pinpoint the revisionist history and every single one of the delusions and lies that Space Nutters believe in. It's a religion with its beliefs and "end of the world" scenario. Sad, really. They *think* they're rational and scientific, but Space Nuttery is one of the most irrational beliefs to come out of the XXth century.

Re:They should be thankful

[Anonymous Coward]

""Space Nutters," now THAT'S a show name! We'll get Ron Moore to produce, Scott Bakula to star, and Syfy to air. Quick, Jimmy, get me Hollywood on the phone!"

SyFy wouldn't air something like that. Your show idea has too much science fiction. Try the History Channel.

Re:They should be thankful

[GooberToo]

We would have had all of that and a lot more without Congress.

Fix that for you. The shuttle that flies today is not the shuttle that was originally designed. In fact, the design criteria and requirements changes numerous times because of congressional mandate. When Congress was done, we suddenly had a pig on a fuel tank and dual boosters which could only service lower orbits. The original craft was much more utilitarian, capable of servicing much higher orbits, albeit with a smaller payload area.

Realistically, the shuttle, at inception, did have potential to meet some level of desired service criteria but Congress ensured that was never going to be possible.

Re:They should be thankful

[manicbutt]

+2 for having some vision and ambition for us to have a permanent moon settlement.

- 15 for saying "could of," even though you correctly said "should have" in the next sentence.

Re:They should be thankful

[GooberToo]

and the complex throttling ability was needed for Astronaut comfort/safety.

I read this has to do with cargo capacity and altitude of orbit more so than anything else. Is this not true?

Re:They should be thankful

[countertrolling]

...Space Nuttery is one of the most irrational beliefs to come out of the XXth century.

:-) Yep, damn near as crazy as Flying Machine and Horseless Carriage Nuttery from all the previous centuries..

Re:They should be thankful

[rickb928]

Actually, Buran probably cost 20B Rubles, and the expenditure was unsupportable. Some would say that this alone precipitated the economic collapse of the Soviet Union, but I think we can give their military and good ol' Ronnie some credit.

Re:They should be thankful

[dunkelfalke]

Energia engines were also supposed to be reusable.

Re:They should be thankful

[Anonymous Coward]

The need to throttle down isn't related to astronaut comfort but to make sure the vehicle doesn't tear itself apart (which, admittedly, would affect astronaut safety).

The engines are throttle back to approx. 65% during the part of the asccent when the dynamic pressure is at its highest - "max q", about 1 minute after launch. Roughly, the dynamic pressure is the combination of speed, air pressure and air flow around the vehicle.
Basically, if the engines weren't throttled back the vehicle would go to fast and induce stresses that may damage or destroy it.

Re:They should be thankful

[joggle]

That was not the critical flaw to the shuttle. The flaw was its basic concept, of having a hypersonic space glider attached to the side of a rocket. It simply can't compete on a cost basis with traditional rockets (of having the payload carried on top of a disposable rocket). It also is more dangerous due to ice and foam falling from the fuel tank which can then strike the shuttle. If you watch old Apollo launches you will see large chunks of ice fall from the boosters but then harmlessly fall to the ground since there was nothing for it to his.

I don't blame congress for that critical flaw since there really was no way to know how difficult it would be to solve the issue of falling ice and foam or how much it would cost to do the shuttle launches until they tried it since it had never been tried at that point in time. Once they saw how expensive it was they probably should have gone back to the drawing board, but this was going on at the end of the Cold War and I'm sure the political pressure to continue building shuttles was immense.

Re:They should be thankful

[Anonymous Coward]

It's sort of both really. The throttle down does reduce the dynamic pressure - this is true. It also keeps the G load below 3. Throttling also happens during the last minute of launch. The vehicle gets so light that it starts accelerating too quickly. No dynamic load at this point, since it's already out of the atmosphere, but the occupants would not be too happy.

Unmanned vehicles routinely take more that this 3G limit.

Re:They should be thankful

[Animats]

Buran was a nice spacecraft. They had the advantage of doing it after the US, so they were able to avoid some mistakes. Buran's tiles aren't as fragile as the US tiles. Buran could fly through rain; the US shuttle can be damaged by raindrops.

While Buran looks much like the US shuttle, it's not. Buran has no main engines. The carrier booster has the engines.

Re:They should be thankful

[J4]

All those things were fantasies once too. We only made them reality because it was cheaper and had an immediate business application.

Rhetorical: Are you a realist or are you just settling?

Re:They should be thankful

[X0563511]

-1238756 for a totally out of whack reaction to a mistake that doesn't fucking matter.

Re:They should be thankful

[JasterBobaMereel]

Hubble - Could have been Launched without the Shuttle
All other satellites - Could have been launched without the Shuttle

The Shuttle was actually a hinderance for launching some satellites - some where too bit, the wrong shape, or needed to be launched in another orbit .....

Re:They should be thankful

[Anonymous Coward]

Strange, none of those took 40 years to transport only about 20 people! They all worked, now, here, with real normal people using ordinary materials, and 40 years later everyone used them.

You embody *exactly* the delusions I'm talking about. You are ignorant of engineering, reality and physics, that's obvious, and probably history of technology too.

Re:They should be thankful

[ColdWetDog]

-1238756 for a totally out of whack reaction to a mistake that doesn't fucking matter.

+++ Divide By Cucumber Error. Please Reinstall Universe And Reboot +++

Re:They should be thankful

[Anonymous Coward]

COULD of had

"could of had" makes absolutely no sense. Try "could've had" or "could have had".

Re:They should be thankful

[blizz017]

Hubble - Could have been Launched without the Shuttle All other satellites - Could have been launched without the Shuttle

The Shuttle was actually a hinderance for launching some satellites - some where too bit, the wrong shape, or needed to be launched in another orbit .....

Hubble - Pretty difficult to repair without a shuttle; and up until the last servicing mission, couldn't be serviced or returned to earth intact without a shuttle.

Re:They should be thankful

[quacking duck]

Actually failure modes are basically the same. A result of having a vehicle attached to the side of the booster that you can't easily eject at lower speeds and altitudes and expect it to glide anywhere.

The US shuttle has one failure mode between T=0 and booster separation: you're screwed. The SRBs can't be shut down, and you can't separate either the shuttle or booster from the stack until SRB burn-out; catastrophic stresses would tear it apart if you tried.

The Buran stack, being entirely liquid-fueled, could be shut down or throttled back at any time, allowing the Russian shuttle to separate safely (in theory; even on the US shuttle, post-launch aborts have always been abort-to-orbit). It might not have enough altitude or speed to make a safe landing after an early abort, but it gives the crew a chance to eject or ditch.

Re:They should be thankful

[countertrolling]

Yeah, space is too complicated. Total waste of time and effort. If it can't be built in your garage by one guy, it's not worth building, right? Especially if it takes over a week... Talk about your lust for instant gratification...

Pure masturbation all this space exploration stuff. We have everything we need right here. Why would anybody want to leave? And there's certainly no reason to believe that the whole process could possibly be mechanized in the future, reducing human effort (thus costs) to near zero. Nope, let's just sit here on our duffs, munching on Doritos, and feed the poor... to the gods of war

Re:They should be thankful

[Jane Q. Public]

"-1238756 for a totally out of whack reaction to a mistake that doesn't fucking matter."

Hmmm... let's see:

"We hold these things to be kinda obvious: that some men are created similar, that they are endowed by their Government with certain alienable Priveleges..."

Wow! You're right! Using the proper words doesn't matter at all! How could we have been so misguided all these years?


--
Would somebody please invent a "sarcasterisk"?

Re:They should be thankful

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, how much has war benefited our technology? Space *IS* too complicated, humans AREN'T meant for it. We don't belong there. There is NOTHING there.

We can send probes and satellites, sure, but that's it. End of story. We have neither the technology nor the energy nor the biology to achieve more in space than we already have. That's it, it's over, it's the end. So now what? Your life is over?

Re:They should be thankful

[Rich0]

I don't think you need to throttle engines due to capacity/etc. As long as you can control the burn duration and start/stop the engines (or have an extra stage) to circularize the orbit you shouldn't need throttle control as long as G-forces aren't a factor.

Throttle control is needed to minimize G-forces. As fuel is depleted the rocket gets lighter, which means that a given amount of force gives greater and greater acceleration. For a manned ship that is a big problem, both for the crew and all the fragile stuff needed to support them. For an unmanned ship you can better support everything and let it tolerate the force (they can put GPS guidance and proximity fuses on artillery shells, after all).

Conventional rockets are used to put all kinds of payloads into all kinds of orbits all the time. Throttle isn't a big issue.

Re:They should be thankful

[Rich0]

This is probably a bit of both, since if the ship were unmanned it probably would be a lot easier to design it to just run at full throttle the whole time. If it didn't have big wings and a windshield maybe air resistance wouldn't be a problem.

I do agree that stress and acceleration impacts all aspects of the spacecraft, and not just the crew.

Re:They should be thankful

[countertrolling]

You seem convinced there's nothing left to be discovered... You know something the rest of us don't? Everything that will be invented already has been? You been to the future? Have we also stopped evolving?

Hey, how much has war benefited our technology?

Maybe if we go to war in space, you might see the benefits? Population control... Nuke 'em from orbit.. See? there ya go...

Re:They should be thankful

[spaceyhackerlady]

Realistically, the shuttle, at inception, did have potential to meet some level of desired service criteria but Congress ensured that was never going to be possible.

There's a deeper issue: the Shuttle was conceived as part of a larger project, hence the name, Space Transportation System. Most of the System was cancelled, leaving only the Shuttle, an isolated component with no real function.

...laura

Re:They should be thankful

[Spotticus]

The biggest flaw was that NASA originally estimated that it would cost $10 billion to build the Shuttle. Congress said no, here is $5 billion, plus it has to do all of these extra things that the Air Force wants. Oh and we will cancel or deferr all of the projects that justify building the Shuttle in the first place. The Shuttle is a classic example of penny wise and pound foolish. To save $5 billion in the 70's, we spend hundreds of billions in the 80's, 90's and 2000's. It's stupid even if you use discounted cash flows

Re:They should be thankful

[Anonymous Coward]

OH BTW, in case you still don't get it, war is the main driving force behind our technology, and the Space Race came AFTER all the pieces needed existed ALREADY, thanks to OTHER FIELDS.

Hm, WWII digital communication...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SIGSALY

So much for the whole "computers only exist because of sppAAAAAce" crap.

Oh wait, the mouse?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfIgzSoTMOs

What use would a mouse have in space anyways? Anyways, I could go on for hours demolishing every single one of the space fanatic's falsehoods, distortions, lies and delusions about technology but really, if I can learn it on my own, so can you.

You see, I used to be a Space Nutter. But I realize it makes no sense at all, and the only thing we can do if you really want to explore space and not just the back porch like we've done so far, is LIFE EXTENSION.

Oddly, Space Nutters are against life extension because it's not natural. Rockets and life support systems, however, are natural and grow in the forest.

Strange people.

Re:They should be thankful

[Anonymous Crowbar]

While in Moscow I saw the shuttle the picture below (bottom right) while having a river tour.. http://www.flickr.com/photos/mikemorrisonz/5033406891/

Re:They should be thankful

[Anonymous Coward]

what we could've had, or what we could have had.

Realn how to light Engrish.

Re:They should be thankful

[Anonymous Coward]

we should have to a permanent moon settlement and Mars.

According to the Governator, we don't need our whole bodies there.

Re:They should be thankful

[Anonymous Coward]

Engineering something as complicated as the Space Shuttle is not simply a matter of simple design decisions. There was a REASON why the Space Shuttle was put on the side of the stack, and falling ice has NEVER been a serious issue. It was foam that caused Columbia, and not on the launch pad, which is where all the ice falls off anyways, but at a much higher speed. If you design the vehicle to deal with the problem it isn't an issue. One of those design issues would be to make sure that the vehicle is attached to the tank with enough clearance to avoid the risk of being impacted by dangerous particles of ice. In addition, the issue with the foam was caused by a design decision to put the insulating foam on the outside of the external tank, to save weight as it isn't part of the structure of the tank.

The other factor is that putting the shuttle on the top of the stack would probably INCREASE the flight risk, not decrease it, and you would not be increasing the likelyhood of surviving any incident either, because you have to factor in that this huge vehicle would have to turn around. Something that astronauts train for right now, but alas, the vehicle has never actually been tested to determine if it could survive that (Professor Hoffman at MIT described it as a 'sporty' maneuver, but that is an understatement). As to your hypersonic vehicle statement, exactly how many other hypersonic vehicles do you know of that can reenter from space that exists that is any safer? NONE I take it, well guess what, that is because this is a largely unexplored engineering problem. ANY vehicle is going to have potential Risk, but hey, the astronauts know this. And don't listen to the lies that Christa McCauliffe didn't understand the risks. She may not have known about the specific risk, but can anyone ever understand every potential failure condition of a vehicle that complex? Do Pilots of airliners know about every single risk associated with failure conditions of the planes that they fly, hell no.

The one thing that the Shuttle was only minimally demonstrated to have as a very clear advantage over a capsule design was the ability to bring payload back. Remember that the Space Shuttle was originally designed to have a space station being built at the same time, which congress did not approve. Well the simple reality is that the ISS is a useless albatross without a shuttle to go along with it (well it was never designed to be practical but that is a different issue), because no matter what you do on the space station, you can never bring anything back. The Shuttle offered that opportunity.

In short, was it a perfect vehicle, no, but nothing ever is. Is there room for improvement, hell yes, after 30 years. It should have been replaced with lessons learned years ago, but replacing it with a capsule is not an advance, it is a HUGE step backwards.

Re:They should be thankful

[Anonymous Coward]

The failure modes may not be exactly the same, but the risk of failure is much reduced on the Space Shuttle because the SRB's have far fewer components that can fail. If the Space Shuttle had Liquid fuel rockets instead of solid rockets, and one of those boosters shut down, before the crew had a chance to react, the entire vehicle stack would be in an uncontrollable situation and you would have a Loss of Vehicle and crew. (just think asymmetric thrust). Buran dealt with that by having 4 strap on booster rockets rather than just one, and each booster had 4 motors, not one. Energya only flew twice though, so nobody will ever know how reliable it would have been in regular use.

And no, the Buran stack could not have been throttled back at any time. During the lift off, when the vehicle has the most mass, the vehicle could not be throttled back because then there wouldn't be enough thrust to keep the vehicle through its ascent path. Even the Space Shuttle didn't do that. It comes off the pad pretty much at full thrust, then throttles back the main engines as the velocity increases (after breaking the speed of sound IIRC), and later on throttles back up.

Re:They should be thankful

[X0563511]

Indeed, because your example is of a comparable magnitude!

Re:They should be thankful

[countertrolling]

Rockets and life support systems, however, are natural and grow in the forest.

Refined from rocks actually, nothing unnatural about that... But who knows? Maybe some day we'll genetically modify Giant Sequoias into Saturn Vs.

I'm just saying that the impracticability of space travel only illustrates our lack of knowledge, and some wrongheaded theories. We won't be forever confined to our present day jalopies.

You know, sailing ships used to take enormous government resources back in the days of terrestrial discovery. It wasn't easy to get the fundage then either.

Re:They should be thankful

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe the "more dangerous" part of the equation is what finally the shuttle in. After the Challenger loss, you could write it off as a one off loss which was nominally fixed. After the second shuttle was lost... it became 2 complete failures out of 88 (I think at the time) launches... not a very stellar safety record by any measure.

Re:They should be thankful

[Anonymous Coward]

No, the problem is that the shuttle was made to provide a spy platform and the ability to do a first strike.
It was not ever meant solely as a cheap space vehicle.
Any hypersonic craft with a plausible reason for going into space at regular intervals and then later entering the atmosphere with an entry window easily tweaked to take it directly over the USSR with a closed cargo bay that can hold a very large warhead payload without outside people knowing is capable of a first strike.
Also, a telescope module could be used for quick imaging of hot-spots or to take a out of normal coverage image.
See the Spacelab for examples of cargo bay modules with cameras.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spacelab

The USSR was absolutely convinced that this is what the shuttle was for and the bizarre funding of the shuttle when the 'party line' of cheap flights and a 'space truck' was proven false give strong weight to their belief.

There is a reason the shuttle was funded to the level it was and there is a reason that the military has a drone version of the shuttle already flying... Because they have payload designed for a shuttle-like craft and they will not be denied the ability to use the payloads after the shuttle stops flying.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_X-37

Re:They should be thankful

[Anonymous Coward]

Bitter aren't we? Also, why is this comment "Insightful" ?

And to answer your bitter comment, if you always look at what could have or might have been, and not what you got, then you're pretty sad and bitter, and you will never be happy.

So is your kid a net negative because he/she could have been smarter than Einstein?

Sad.

Re:They should be thankful

[joggle]

The reason there's foam is to prevent ice from forming on the fuel tank. Ice is both a weight issue as well as a falling hazard. The Apollo rocket boosters had no foam (or very little, but I'm pretty sure it was none) since falling ice wasn't a hazard.

Of course you wouldn't put a glider on top of the rocket booster. You would put a standard capsule on top, as was done during Apollo.

Look, I love the shuttle but there's no way it can compete on cost with a standard rocket, period. We tried for decades to make it more cost effective yet it still costs several times more per pound of payload to launch than by using a Soyuz rocket.

When NASA was looking for a replacement for the shuttle they didn't even consider another glider due to the cost issue alone.

I would also argue that it can't compete on safety with a simpler launch system either.

What does the glider offer? It's almost completely reusable (everything but the primary fuel tank). It can land near where it is launched from (although often lands in California due to weather and must be flown back to Florida at enormous cost).

However, it also requires a lot more fuel per pound of payload to launch. The vehicle costs much more than a capsule system. It also has to go through an extensive (and expensive) refurbishing process after each mission. And, of course, it is a heck of a lot more complicated (so has many more parts that can fail).

Re:They should be thankful

[GooberToo]

When NASA was looking for a replacement for the shuttle they didn't even consider another glider due to the cost issue alone.

Far more likely that was because of political funding issues more so than any other factor. This is probably not the best line item to put up as a defense.

Re:They should be thankful

[h4rr4r]

Why at 3G, I have been up to 5G and I am not astronaut. Seems they should be able to do 3G all day.

Re:They should be thankful

[h4rr4r]

Evil Old Ronald had nothing to do with it, he was far more concerned about selling out the middle class and cementing up the neocon wing of the republican party.

Re:They should be thankful

[quacking duck]

The failure modes may not be exactly the same, but the risk of failure is much reduced on the Space Shuttle because the SRB's have far fewer components that can fail.

The chances of failure may be lower with the US shuttle launch system, but the cost of any such failure is far greater because there's no way to recover from it while the SRBs are still strapped on, as Challenger showed.

If the Space Shuttle had Liquid fuel rockets instead of solid rockets, and one of those boosters shut down, before the crew had a chance to react, the entire vehicle stack would be in an uncontrollable situation and you would have a Loss of Vehicle and crew. (just think asymmetric thrust). Buran dealt with that by having 4 strap on booster rockets rather than just one, and each booster had 4 motors, not one.

Liquid fuel engines have been computer controlled for decades--no need for human intervention except to acknowledge the shutdown. If a side booster shut down suddenly, the computers should automatically shut down the other one too, to prevent asymmetric thrust. At that point the side boosters would be discarded to reduce the stack's mass, then they'd follow a variation of either Return to Launch Site (RTLS) or Transoceanic Abort Landing (TAL) intact abort modes. If it can't make a landing site it still gives the orbiter and crew more time to ditch, and at lower altitudes and speed too.

And no, the Buran stack could not have been throttled back at any time. During the lift off, when the vehicle has the most mass, the vehicle could not be throttled back because then there wouldn't be enough thrust to keep the vehicle through its ascent path. Even the Space Shuttle didn't do that. It comes off the pad pretty much at full thrust, then throttles back the main engines as the velocity increases (after breaking the speed of sound IIRC), and later on throttles back up.

"Anytime" would be an exaggeration, but I wasn't even thinking about a launchpad abort right at liftoff; unless there's a capsule eject system the human crew is still screwed.

I was referring to an abort mode sometime before booster separation, but after the stack has enough speed and altitude (T+30 would probably do it) that if all engines and boosters were shut down and the stack went ballistic, that there'd be enough time for the crew to ditch, or the orbiter attempts to separate from the stack first.

With the US shuttle launch system, there's absolutely no escape for the 2 minutes the SRBs are strapped on.

Re:They should be thankful

[Anonymous Coward]

If we want people to become excited about space again we need to let them dream a little.

I personally believe the future of humanity is beyond this planet.

Re:They should be thankful

[JasterBobaMereel]

For some satellites this might be true, the ones that fit in the payload bay, it's the one thing that the shuttle does that cannot easily be done by any other craft

But Hubble does not fit in the payload bay (Without losing the solar panels), so the shuttle repair team did spacewalks just like they would have has to do from any other spacecraft ....

Returning Hubble has never been suggested, why cart the whole thing down repair it and relaunch, when it would be cheaper just to replace it ....Like they are doing anyway?

Re:They should be thankful

[RealErmine]

I'll take the pie-in-the-sky. The future sounds delicious!

Re:They should be thankful

[Anonymous Coward]

I KNOW WHY there is foam, the question is, do you put the foam on the outside of the tank structure or inside the tank structure.

And yes the shuttle does cost more than a capsule, but it is also INFINITELY more flexible. Even today, there is a lot of discussion as to how certain things are going to be performed when the shuttle retires.

If there is a big gap with the shuttle, it is that NASA never accounted for the scenario (even after Challenger) that the Shuttle is appropriate for some things, and inappropriate for others, so a mix of vehicles is beneficial.

And the 'costs' that are talked about do not take into account the logistics required to support a capsule launch on water. With it, you need a standing army (er navy) to ensure that you have the ability to recover no matter where the capsule returns. This is fine while you have the government running the show, but do you honestly think that the US navy is going to do that for free for private operators?

Also, the biggest loss with the retirement of the shuttle is that there will now be no way to return significant payload back to earth. While not really utilized with the shuttle, it was a feature that was part of its requirements list. This alone is going to make it difficult for any real expansion into space. If I am a company that wants to look at manufacturing anything in space, why would I bother if I can't bring it back.

As to cost, other than energy, which will always be higher to get into orbit, the cost to get into orbit is dependent on the quantity launched into orbit. If you take out what may (or may not) be considered to be the largest volume of customers, then you will NEVER reduce the costs.

As to the refurbishment, one of the reasons why NASA never really implemented the automated checkout equipment was partly culture, but also partly due to the shuttle never really getting enough routine launches to make it worthwhile. There is a cost associated with doing things in volume. SInce the shuttle could never launch more than 10 times a year (that was how many external tanks that could be manufactured in a given year), it wouldn't make sense to go to that expense.

Another cost related issue. The costs that are attributed to the shuttle on a per flight basis are not really the true cost of launch. NASA in calculating those costs would take the cost of operating all NASA centers that were classed as 'manned spaced flight centers' (marshall, ames, kennedy, johnson etc...) and then divide by the number of flights in a given year. Even if most of the activities of that center were allocated to no shuttle operations, it was still tucked into the shuttle cost structure. I don't think anyone really knows how much a shuttle flight really costs.

Complexity, that is a fact of life, and the tendency to not actually perform any upgrades to the shuttle (other than the flight deck and computer systems) did more to make the shuttle component reliability less than desired, but when you have only 4 shuttles, and a limited flight manifest, it doesn't really matter in some ways, though it does take away from NASA's role of advancing the state of the art in space technology.

Re:They should be thankful

[Anonymous Coward]

NASA originally wanted 3 things, a space station, an orbital transfer vehicle and the space shuttle. They got just the shuttle. In the end NASA got a 'truck' that had nowhere to go.

The funding reduction was a matter of how much money in one year or the next year (inflation was pretty high at this time). NASA wanted the later year, the OMB specified the earlier year. The actual cost as per the estimate was actually very close if the later year was taken into account. (I forget exactly which two years were in the discussion).

As to the cost per flight, that isn't going to go down significantly until there is an actual market with which to expand the space industry significantly. 10 flights a year for a vehicle isn't going to cut it in terms of reducing the cost because the the enormous Research & Development costs (and that isn't coming down, if anything, that is going to go up).

The ONLY thing that the DoD really got in terms of design changes was the payload bay, and after the initial hesitation on NASA's part of a payload bay that large (reportedly that size because it was the size of the largest recon satellite on the design board), NASA realized that they needed a payload bay that large anyways. There just wasn't a point to making it any smaller. Without a cargo bay, you might as well just go with a capsule.

Being penny wise, pound foolish isn't a black and white issue. While the cost/flight projections were based on 100 flights per year, the facility that builds the external tanks couldn't manufacture more than about 10 in a given year. So there was absolutely no way that the shuttle could ever get more than 10% of that flight rate. If you know you can't hit an 'operational' flight rate, it just isn't worth it to spend the money to automate the checkout process.

Re:They should be thankful

[Anonymous Coward]

Comfort/safety is a factor is related to the engines not actually being effective during the thickest part of the atmosphere, so the energy expended is ending up going into vibration, and not thrust. Once the shuttle is above that part of the atmosphere (basically after Max-Q, maximum dynamic pressure), the engines are throttled up.

The throttling up past 100% is actually a contractual issue. The original requirement was that the engines meet a certain level of thrust. So that 100% is actually THAT level of thrust. Once it was determined that the engines could safely output higher thrust, to go back and set that new level of thrust as the 100% mark would have required a massive amount of paperwork, and rerunning tests as they were all based on that specified 100% level. So the engine was then rated at a higher than 100% thrust.

Re:They should be thankful

[Anonymous Coward]

When making an engineering decision like this, you factor in ALL the scenarios. So if you have a situation where you have 100's of things that can go wrong, with some remote possibility of crew survival, or a situation where extremely few things can go wrong but almost no chance of crew survival, I would take the latter. Not because I don't value the lives of the crew, but because I would want the best chance of nothing going wrong. You can't use Buran as proof of a better way because Buran flew only once, and that was unmanned (it had no life support), and Energya only flew one other time with a non Buran payload.

The SRB's on the shuttle are EXTREMELY simple engines. Even on Challenger, the solid rocket motor did not fail. The motor is just that thing at the bottom. In a liquid fuel comparison, the tank of the SRB failed.

And yes I know Liquid fuel rockets have been controlled by computers for decades. They were computer controlled on the apollo flights as well.

My point was that you more than likely wouldn't be able to do any form of a RTL because of the G forces on the vehicle, either the vehicle's velocity is too high to be able to withstand the turn required OR the vehicles velocity is too low and it just acts like a brick and falls. So a TAL abort would require that the vehicle essentially be at the point in time that the SRB's have been removed. Using a liquid fuel booster would not have improved survivability all that much, and in some phases of flight it would not have improved it at all. It just would have changed some of the dynamics, moving some risk to other areas, and by and large making the overall vehicle more dangerous.

Also remember, a shuttle launch is largely vertical for those two minutes of flight that the SRB's are attached. Not much lift can be generated by the wings during that time; the shuttle doesn't fly, it just has a controlled drop; it would be extremely doubtful that any meaningful 'flight/glide' could be created if during that period the flight had to be aborted. You are talking about a strong likely hood of a loss of vehicle and crew anyways. That is regardless of whether you had Solid Rocket Boosters or Liquid Boosters.

Re:They should be thankful

[inanet]

although I don't agree with most of what you said,
I have to agree with you there, life extension is definitely what stands between the human race and the stars,

lets face it, if you had a life expectancy of 1000 years, then the idea of spending a 100 years or so traveling somewhere like Alpha Centauri (or anywhere) becomes a hell of a lot more feasible.

especially if you can work out a way of doing long duration sleeping, or that techniques some monks i read about somewhere do that consumes less energy than sleeping, or whatever.

Space is awesome, but it is mind - bogglingly huge, "space is big. space is Really Big. you may think its a long way down the road to the chemist, but thats just peanuts to space"

the initial costs are massive, and I don't know that the human race are capable of getting more than the first couple of pokes past LEO, perhaps never.

with the problems facing the planet, and the human race, the biggest tragedy that I can see occurring is that we will so focussed on the short term, that by the time we realise we need to harness the availability of resource in space we won't be able to.


I would imagine that if people were more like insects, or there was less of the whole "dignity of self", without getting too utilitarian, it would be easier to get to space.

this is why I believe that any race out there that are space - faring, are much less likely to have a society of "individuals" and instead be more like insects with a ruling class perhaps and then multitude of workers.

it would be free for us to get to space if everyone was "happy" to work towards the common goal for free, whether that is mining the land, providing resources etc.

it gets a big communist, but also reminds me of another saying "slavery gets shit done"

the biggest problem with capitalism / free markets is that unless its something that makes you money it quickly gets "too hard"

if you didnt have to pay for any of the resources, and you had the full supply chain from food through to tech workers, factories, scientists etc. and nobody had materialistic goals,
then bulding a giant fuckoff ship to get to mars would be feasible, so would seeder ships to other systems, because it was "free" as the resources on the planet allow for.

but for the meanwhile I don't think we as a race have a mindset that is capable of putting together giant projects.

I was going to use the pyramids as an example of how you need a driven leader and lots of free labour to achieve truly massive feats (unlike the car and the plane which could be built in a garage)

but then I read somewhere recently that the pyramids may have been built by sub - contractors.

but yeah. I am among many who desperately want to see a push beyond LEO,
I don't expect it will happen, but if someone discovers some way for it to happen I'll be the happiest man off the planet ;)

Re:They should be thankful

[Jane Q. Public]

Magnitude, no. Relevance, yes.

Don't think so

[Anonymous Coward]

Given that the Buran was destroyed by a hangar collapse: http://www.buran.ru/images/jpg/bbur90.jpg

Re:Don't think so

[Vectormatic]

wikipedia lists 5 russian orbiters at least partially constructed:

- Buran, destroyed in hangar collapse
- Ptichka, 95% completed, stored at the baikonur facility in kazachstan
- Baikal, incomplete, located at baikonur
- 11F35K4, partially dismantled, located outside the Tushino machine building plant near Moscow
- 11F35K5, dismantled

i'd say this might be 11F35K4

i didnt know about Buran being destroyed though, such a shame

Re:Don't think so

[Vicarius]

They might have rebuilt it after it was destroyed. I vividly remember seeing it with my own eyes in Gorky park in Moscow.

Re:Don't think so

[Vectormatic]

wikipedia lists the craft in gorky park as the OK-TVA, a static full scale test model built for load/heat/stress/vibration testing

Re:Don't think so

[acedotcom]

i have to agree after doing some reading that this is k4 and not Buran. i was confused by the headline as well because i knew that Buran was destroyed. i guess when you come across a FREAKING SPACE SHUTTLE and you know that Russia only had one successful one then its the first thing to think.

Wikipedia says that it is "Partially dismantled, remains outside Tushino Machine Building Plant, near Moscow." It is sad to know that something pretty much as awesome as that is just sitting outside, but if thats how things are then i guess the only thing i could hope for would be to get to Russia so i can crawl around inside of it.

Re:Don't think so

[Anonymous Coward]

    The Buran was squished quite a while ago. It's a shame, but shit happens.

    There were other things that they built that looked like orbiters. There were several aerodynamic mockups (like the US orbiter "Enterprise"). I wouldn't be terribly surprised to find that the pieces shown in the photo weren't necessarily even a named or numbered shuttle. The US orbiter "Endeavor" was built from spare parts for the "Discovery" and "Atlantis". Before it was constructed, they would have just been spare parts. When the US space shuttle program is finished, either the end of 2010, or sometime in 2011, I wouldn't be totally surprised to hear about spare orbiter parts laying about in odd places. The US gov't is kind of pissy about hiding their secrets away. I'm confident that the named and complete units will end up at museums, but the unnamed "spare parts" will end up somewhere like this or this. There are plenty of other facilities to dispose of old parts at too.

Re:Don't think so

[Vectormatic]

yup, i knew they had two (buran and ptichka), but i just found out they had three more orbiters in various stages on construction (among which this K4), and about a dozen static full scale models for structural testing etc...

So yeah, if i had tripped over that thing in moscow, i would have screamed "buran" too (and crawled inside to pretend to be a cosmonaut)

It is a bleeding shame to see these historical artifacts left in the junk-yard like they are, Ptichka apparently is stored at baikonur together with K3, i wonder if they are tourist-viewable (although i dont really like the idea of a trip to kazachstan)

Re:Don't think so

[Tmack]

Mojave is an interesting/strange place to visit. Driving through there you can (could) see the planes lined up in the graveyard. The roads around it are setup kinda strange, and its got large fully gridded out sections of land complete with roads and street names, but nothing actually there. I wonder if Scaled composites ramping things up or the airport becoming the space port made them clean up the boneyard, the google maps satellite view now shows only a handful of jets, most look flight ready, the fields are mostly empty and you can see where most of the stuff was parked. Not the same as when I drove through about 3 years ago...

Tm

Re:Don't think so

[Purity Of Essence]

So yeah, if i had tripped over that thing in moscow, i would have screamed "buran" too (and crawled inside to pretend to be a cosmonaut)

I would have pretended to be a Space Pirate. Way cooler.

Re:Don't think so

[fishbowl]

Good article with pictures of the hangar collapse here:

http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question/spacecraft/q0153.shtml

Re:Don't think so

[fishbowl]

>It is a bleeding shame to see these historical artifacts left in the junk-yard like they are

Aerospace graveyards have a distinct beauty.

For years, my route to work took me through the Aircraft Boneyard in Tucson AZ. It's an incredible sight, and I never got tired of seeing it. A few (too few) times I had the privilege of going out there to obtain parts.

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=tucson+aircraft+boneyard

Re:Don't think so

[budgenator]

I thought I had died and went to geek heaven while poking around some of the salvage yards at Marshall Space Flight Center; you can't crawl inside a museum exhibit like you can a piece of junk!

Re:Don't think so

[DrGradus]

You wouldn't download a spacecraft...

Re:Don't think so

[wisdom_brewing]

And one in Australia, my mother shipped it there.

http://www.collectspace.com/news/news-021000a.html

Re:Don't think so

[wisdom_brewing]

Planning a trip to Baikonur with a friend of mine who's a science teacher to watch a launch...

Went to see a shuttle launch which was delayed twice in the 90's, only had a week in Florida so couldn't wait around for the next window. In Baikonur it's a guaranteed launch every time. Lovely country too.

Not News

[WED Fan]

I remember seeing pictures of Buran on the junk heap about 10 years ago. Why is this news today?

Re:Not News

[Rogerborg]

I remember seeing pictures of Buran on the junk heap about 10 years ago. Why is this news today?

THIS. IS. SLASHDOT!

Re:Not News

[smallfries]

I can read Russian just fine thanks. For your information this IS news because it is a carnival ride rusting. Sheesh even Taco pointed that one out for you.

Re:Not News

[Danathar]

Because CmdrTaco says so..that's why

Re:Not News

[interval1066]

"I can read Russian just fine thanks.

Yeah, we commentators should have known YOU read Russian. Silly us.

Re:Not News

[arivanov]

I have some doubts about you being able to read russian.

The original article (which is mostly pics) does not refer to any carnival rides. However it is in Moskovskij Komsomolec which is pretty much the Russian equivalent of the UK Sun or the German Build. Classic tabloid stuff.

As far as seeing a rusting hulk of a spaceship on ax Soviet Block scrapyard. Well really - nothing new there. Quite a few other examples come to mind. For example if you drive around Sofia on the ring road there is a fighter jet in a reasonably good condition (much better than the Buran on the picture) parked in one of the laybuys. It is nowdays prime location on the ring road for "truck stop and servicing" by practicioners of the oldest human profession. I can think of at least a couple of examples where there are serviceable tanks, missile launchers and other gear located in similar locations. As the saying goes - welcome to the wild east...

Re:Not News

[craash420]

For example if you drive around Sofia on the ring road there is a fighter jet in a reasonably good condition (much better than the Buran on the picture) parked in one of the laybuys. It is nowdays prime location on the ring road for "truck stop and servicing" by practicioners of the oldest human profession.

Great, I discover this after I spent all of my time in Burgas!

Re:Not News

[Anonymous Coward]

Russian Translation for You
And [nebyvaemoe] occurs. It would seem, the deserted spacecraft on the street of Moscow - this something from the region of fantasy. But, alas, this is genuine reality. Correspondent “MK” revealed orbital Soviet “snow-storm” by that dragging along, as if garbage, in the capital outskirts. There is no one matter to the fact that was once the symbol of the space power of our country. Natalia [Mushchinkina]

Re:Not News

[dos4who]

because slashdot is following the new DIGG format.

Re:Not News

[severoon]

In Soviet Russia, we send space into junk.

Actually, it is kind of sad, even when stated in the style of the Yakov meme. :-/

Re:Not News

[smallfries]

Wooooosh. There were enough references to the summary in there...

Re:Not News

[smallfries]

And yet with all of this knowledge and my piss-takey reference to the summary you felt the need to write a long response. 10/10 for knowledge about russia, but whoosh none the less

Re:Not News

[Gilmoure]

SPARTA. IS. OVER THERE!

Re:Not News

[Anonymous Coward]

I remember seeing pictures of Buran on the junk heap about 10 years ago. Why is this news today?

THIS. IS. SLASHDOT!

Are you suggesting Slashdot has 10-year old dups running around? What will we call them in a few decades? Grand-dups?

Re:Not News

[Anonymous Coward]

translate.google.com is your friend......

Re:Not News

[Anonymous Coward]

Nah, you're just not funny.

Re:Not News

[Anonymous Coward]

nope, sorry, it just wasn't funny. only when responses are to things that are funny ("jokes") is a "whoosh" required. Also, "Nonetheless" is one word.

Re:Not News

[Danathar]

But it's true, he submitted the story! I'm just saying that's why. Now why is that Troll like?

Re:Not News

[SolitaryMan]

I live in Russia and I have to say that the news source cited in the summary is questionable at best, so I wouldn't rely on it. However, shuttle rusting in a junk heap is pretty believable :)

There were two of them built back then, and the only one that actually was in space is an exposition in amusement park "Gorky Park": Here is one of the photos.

Re:Not News

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep I think there was one in Sydney in Darling Harbour as well. Not there now so there is likely to be one on a scrap heap in Australia too!

Re:Not News

[Lumpy]

The USA is littered with Serviceable Military stuff. Every few miles we have old tanks... in front of nearly every VFW in the country.

Many ports have old navy gear and a lot of airports have old military aircraft.

Hell last time I was at the Dayton Hamvention I could have bough components to a surface to air missle.

Re:Not News

[Anonymous Coward]

The german craploid is called "Bild", meaning "Picture".

Translation

[Ltap]

It looks authentic, but does anyone have a translation of the article?

Re:Translation

[Anonymous Coward]

Here is the Translation

And unprecedented case. Seemingly abandoned spaceship on the streets of Moscow - it is something from the realm of fantasy. But alas, this is the true reality. Correspondent "MK" discovered orbiting Soviet "Buran" play like garbage on the outskirts of the capital. Nobody cares what was once a symbol of cosmic power of our country.

Re:Translation

[AaxelB]

I've heard good things about this small, obscure start-up that's done a lot of work on machine translation and has a pretty good site available. Maybe you should give them a shot ;)

Re:Translation

[Animaether]

I started this small, unknown, a good thing to hear, many people are in machine translation is complete, there is a very good place. You May Have on the fire ;)

Re:Translation

[Anonymusing]

I do not know how much is a good thing, a town full of listening machine translation, there is a great place. You ;)

Re:Translation

[Anonymous Coward]

"The impossible can happen. One could say that abandoned space ship on a Moscow street is sometinh in the realm of fiction. But, sadly, this is the very true reality. Correspondent of “” found the Soviet orbital "Buran" lying about in the capital suburbs. Nobody cares about what was once the symbol of the space power of our country."

Re:Translation

[Cyberax]

Basically translation is: "Authentic Buran lying in a junk heap. That's a shame, because no one cares about what had been a symbol of country's space might".

Re:Translation

[Penguinisto]

Chrome asked me if I wanted it translated automatically - did a fairly decent job of it.

Re:Translation

[mangu]

I don't know what's so bad about it. I pasted the word "fuck" and ten translations later it still came out as "fuck".

It seems that, no matter the language, a fuck is still a fuck.

The caption says it is Buran.

[chfriley]

I did take a year of Russian in college, and it is a bit (well, very, very rusty), but it seems to say that it is Buran and it has been "sacrificed" and it laments the fact that it was once a symbol of the Soviet power in space but is now junk. That is no where near an exact translation, but a rough translation of parts of the caption.

"" is buran in Russian
"" is essentially "Soviet" (some variation)

Re:The caption says it is Buran.

[Chrisq]

Google translate says And unprecedented case. Seemingly abandoned spaceship on the streets of Moscow - it is something from the realm of fantasy. But alas, this is the true reality. Correspondent "MK" discovered orbiting Soviet "Buran" play like garbage on the outskirts of the capital. Nobody cares what was once a symbol of cosmic power of our country.

Re:The caption says it is Buran.

[Chrisq]

Google translate says: And unprecedented case. Seemingly abandoned spaceship on the streets of Moscow - it is something from the realm of fantasy. But alas, this is the true reality. Correspondent "MK" discovered orbiting Soviet "Buran" play like garbage on the outskirts of the capital. Nobody cares what was once a symbol of cosmic power of our country.

Re:The caption says it is Buran.

[Chrisq]

apologies for duplicate post - I got the "original context lost" message and posted again!

Re:The caption says it is Buran.

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps it is the training module version for the ground crews and was not an actual flying craft?

Re:The caption says it is Buran.

[voss]

Buran is not just one ship but an entire class of ships, there was one finished (destroyed), one partially finished (in Kazakhstan)
and several more in various states of unfinishedness.

This one is possibly 2.02
http://www.buran-energia.com/bourane-buran/bourane-modele-202.php

Re:The caption says it is Buran.

[Abstrackt]

"" is buran "" is essentially "Soviet" (some variation)

So when someone accidentally the whole thing they're actually trying to use unicode on Slashdot?

Re:The caption says it is Buran.

[chfriley]

I guess unicode didn't make it.
The five letter word in quotations (looks like an upside-down "g" then "ypah" is Buran. (5th line, 4th word in the first photo caption)
Then the "cobetckNN" (backwards NN) is essentially "Soviet" (right before Buran).

There are a few other words about it being in the outskirts of Moscow.

Re:The caption says it is Buran.

[Em Ellel]

Google translate says:

And unprecedented case. Seemingly abandoned spaceship on the streets of Moscow - it is something from the realm of fantasy. But alas, this is the true reality. Correspondent "MK" discovered orbiting Soviet "Buran" play like garbage on the outskirts of the capital. Nobody cares what was once a symbol of cosmic power of our country.

Surprisingly close to accurate.

Actual translation:

"Sometimes impossible is possible. You would think that an abandoned spaceship lying on the streets of Moscow is something out of science fiction, but unfortunately this is reality. A Correspondent of "MK" discovered a soviet orbiter "Buran" lying like trash in the capital's suburbs. Nobody cares about what once was a symbol of the space might of our country"

(And yes, "Buran" is not a name of a ship, its a type of ship.)

Re:The caption says it is Buran.

[morgaen]

Well "" you too, you insensitive clod!

Re:The caption says it is Buran.

[powerlord]

Pity the Smithsonian air and space doesn't pick it up to showcase next to their orbiter. Yeah, its not "american", but it does symbolize the Space Race/Arms Race between the US and USSR.

Re:The caption says it is Buran.

[TheStatsMan]

I like "cosmic power" a little more than "space might." +1 google.

Re:The caption says it is Buran.

[ebuck]

Except that it isn't. The original poster is full of bull. Look at the photos to the rear, no space shuttle takes off with scaffolding welded to it's posterior. This must be a training / simulation mock-up of the real thing.

There's other hints to it being a mock-up, like the lack of full tiling.

Re:The caption says it is Buran.

[hondo77]

Looks like they put power lines on that scaffolding, too. ;-)

Re:The caption says it is Buran.

[scharkalvin]

One of the photos DOES show a few tiles on the nose and underbelly near the front. It might be the real thing, the scaffolding might have been welded on as a platform to help disassemble part of it. (Note the wings are missing). I'm sure they did make some partial mockups in order to build the real thing, IIRC there were two obitors built, one was tested on top of a large aircraft. I don't know if any made it into space.

Re:The caption says it is Buran.

[longhairedgnome]

Lol I kept having deja vu, thought my browser was scrolling back up on me

Re:The caption says it is Buran.

[mjwx]

(And yes, "Buran" is not a name of a ship, its a type of ship.)

Actually it's both. The first Buran class orbiter constructed was the named the Buran.

well

[Charliemopps]

If we had done the same and gone back to the Apollo program, 14 people would still be alive.

Re:well

[JoshuaZ]

If we had done the same and gone back to the Apollo program, 14 people would still be alive.

Right, because no one died in the Apollo 1 fire http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_1 . And because no one almost died on Apollo 13. And because no Soviets died in craft similar to the Apollo http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz_11 .

If we had stayed with Apollo type craft there would have almost certainly been more fatalities. Space travel is very dangerous. This isn't going to change anytime soon and wouldn't be different if we had used Apollo-like vehicles. Indeed, I'd tentatively guess that the reduced expense of such vehicles might mean many more launches and thus likely even more fatalities.

Re:well

[Sir_Lewk]

And to think how many people would still be alive if we gave up on building ships a few thousand years ago!

Re:well

[CrimsonAvenger]

If we had done the same and gone back to the Apollo program, 14 people would still be alive.

Unlikely. Hard as it may be to believe, Shuttle's safety record (two disasters in 132 flights) was better than Apollo (one disaster in twelve flights) or even Soyuz (two disasters in 106 flights).

Most likely result if we hadn't gone with Shuttle would have been more, smaller disasters (killing people two or three at a time rather than seven at a shot).

Re:well

[joggle]

NASA learned from their mistakes and did a good job of not repeating them. After Apollo 1 they stopped filling the capsule with 100% oxygen and made some design changes to the capsule to make it safer (and there hasn't been another cabin fire since on any mission).

The Apollo style rockets are fundamentally safer than shuttles. If we had stayed with that kind of rocket we likely would have had something similar to the Russian Soyuz, a rocket that hasn't had an accident since 1971. The reason they are safer is due to being much less complex and because they carry the payload on top of the rocket (so there is no chance of it being struck by falling ice or foam during launch).

The number of Russians (or anyone else) who died on launches by Soyuz during the lifetime of the shuttle program: zero.

Re:well

[joggle]

Those two Soyuz disasters happened very early in its program (the first and eleventh flight). There has not been another disaster on the Soyuz since 1971. During the entire lifetime of the shuttle program there hasn't been a single fatality on the Soyuz.

Re:well

[couchslug]

If we had invested in remote-manned EXPLORATION instead of Cold War cockwaving space tourism, we'd be much further along in exploring space and developing the robotic systems we REQUIRE ANYWAY to support future manned tourism.

Behold "return on investment":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_1

Re:well

[Charliemopps]

yet despite this, Apollo type vehicles are what we are going to start using again. Who'd have thunk it? More complicated does not always mean better.

Re:well

[Anonymous Coward]

Probably quite a few indigenous North American's. What? Too soon?

Re:well

[Megane]

The crew compartment being on the top of the stack also allows you to attach an escape booster to the top. That's what the pointy bit is at the top of a Saturn V stack. If something goes wrong during launch, they can blow the bolts below and let the escape booster get them away from the rest of the rocket.

Re:well

[mjwx]

Unlikely. Hard as it may be to believe, Shuttle's safety record (two disasters in 132 flights) was better than Apollo (one disaster in twelve flights) or even Soyuz (two disasters in 106 flights).

The majority of the casualties in the Soviet space program were on the ground. The US lost about a dozen people in ground accidents (the largest direct loss was 3 people when they asphyxiated in a rocket motor but I think six died in a space program related lab explosion). The Soviet space program lost over 40 people on two separate occasions. China is by far the worse with up to 200 dead in a single incident.

Technically the US lost more Astronauts then the Soviet union lost Cosmonauts but the US had more space missions. Also the Russians picked up the safety game in the late Soviet era.

Re:well

[Lumpy]

Every launch the guys that designed the Saturn 5 said that they were insane to allow people that close to the launch as the explosion would rip them apart.

Apollo was not carefully designed for safety first. IT was designed to get there as fast as possible on a short timetable... the Saturn 5 was a miracle that we never had any fail. Because that giant bomb would have made a major mess. LOX + kerosene is damn volatile.

Ignore the propaganda of the space race, read the books from the guys that actually did it.

The caption says it is Buran.

[chfriley]

I did take a year of Russian in college, and it is a bit (well, very, very rusty), but it seems to say that it is Buran and it has been "sacrificed" and it laments the fact that it was once a symbol of the Soviet power in space but is now junk. That is no where near an exact translation, but a rough translation of parts of the caption.

"" is buran
"" is essentially "Soviet" (some variation)

Which one is it?

[hcdejong]

This page contains a list of the Buran airframes and their locations. This page has a photo of the OK-1K2 unfinished orbiter, this is the closest match to the photos shown in TFA. Aerospaceweb lists this orbiter as having been sold to the Technikmuseum Speyer in 2004, but I've recently been there and they have the OK-GLI atmospheric test bed on display, not OK-1K2.

Re:Which one is it?

[hcdejong]

Wikipedia has a better list, it seems. Most likely candidate is orbiter 2.02:

At the time of the halting of the Buran-Energia program, Buran 2.02 was under construction on the factory floor at the Tushino Machine Building Plant just outside of Moscow. Her level of completion was estimated between 10-20 percent.

With funding gone, Buran 2.02 remained unfinished on the factory floor for a number of years. Recently she has been dismantled and moved outside to the back of the premises. She now lies exposed to the elements. Many of her tiles have since been stripped, such as those shown below can now be bought on the internet.

Re:Which one is it?

[wgibson]

Mod parent up ..

Re:Which one is it?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd like to buy a Buran tile! Any ideas of where one might do that?

Re:Which one is it?

[MacGyver2210]

Looking for it at the site via Google Maps, I came across something interesting in a nearby river.

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=moscow&ie=UTF8&t=k&om=0&hl=en&hq=&hnear=Moscow,+Russia&ll=55.851752,37.456099&spn=0.002803,0.008256&z=18&iwloc=A

Is that a plane in midair, or is that a huge plane-shaped boat? Perhaps a huge seajet of some sort?

Re:Which one is it?

[MoonBuggy]

Google's scary data gathering skills to the rescue! I clicked on the little 'street view' icon, fully expecting to see nothing, but it popped up with a whole bunch of geotagged photos. Found one with a descriptive title and it's then just a short hop to the Wikipedia page.

Re:Which one is it?

[ebuck]

A plane in midair, the plane is listing slightly to the port (making the tail section appear to be slanting to the bottom of the screen). That said, it's an excellent shot if you wanted to start your own "Soviet super secret giant seaplane conspiracy theory"

Re:Which one is it?

[FluffyBob]

It is an Ekranoplan. 'Huge sea jet of some' sort is pretty close.

Re:Which one is it?

[uglyMood]

As pointed out above and below, it is an Ekranoplan, AKA "The Caspian Sea Monster." A small one, actually. Given that it was a top-secret project and that some massive versions were built with the upper decks bristling with missile launchers, I'd say that "Soviet super secret giant seaplane conspiracy theory" is pretty much right on the money.

It is real, its not THE buran

[voss]

Its either part of an incomplete buran-class ship or a static test model.
There were several of them partially built when the program was canceled
in addition to several static test models.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buran_program

The caption says it is Buran.

[chfriley]

I did take a year of Russian in college, and it is a bit (well, very, very rusty), but it seems to say that it is Buran and it has been "sacrificed" and it laments the fact that it was once a symbol of the Soviet power in space but is now junk. That is no where near an exact translation, but a rough translation of parts of the caption.

"" is buran
"" is essentially "Soviet" (some variation)

(Slashdot seems to be having issues at the moment with pages failing to load and not submitting so hopefully it does not submit multiple times)

Amazing...

[advocate_one]

slashdot having problems... target website holding fine... "In Soviet Russia, Buran slashdots you..."

Re:Amazing...

[Anonymous Coward]

Excellent Soviet Russia joke. I snorted coffee out my nose.

Re:Amazing...

[igny]

Interestingly enough, their page's counter went up about 100k since this morning (ET). In the morning, when I first read the story, the counter was going up tens per second.

Re:Amazing...

[wisdom_brewing]

Kudos

From Google Translator

[casals]

"And unprecedented case. Seemingly abandoned spaceship on the streets of Moscow - it is something from the realm of fantasy. But alas, this is the true reality. Correspondent "MK" discovered orbiting Soviet "Buran" play like garbage on the outskirts of the capital. Nobody cares what was once a symbol of cosmic power of our country.
Natalia Muschinkina"

Ah, it is MK...

[Jade_Wayfarer]

Well, it's not newspaper analogue of Fox News, but still very close - well-known "yellow paper" tabloid. So it's not _the_ "Buran", it's just some model / unfinished project, as it was said above. Still, it's not much worse than fate of original "Buran", which now just serves as a cheap attraction in local theme park.

Re:Ah, it is MK...

[Anonymous Coward]

Buran is not the name of a single ship but of a class of ships. This probably is Buran 2.02 and is correctly identified when called just Buran.

Re:Ah, it is MK...

[Jade_Wayfarer]

Not quite so - _the_ "Buran" is one and only craft that really visited space. Later models were meant to be named differently, but only one of them was named at all (model 1.02 "Burya")

To correct my first post - "Buran" was destroyed in 2002 on Baykonur, and version in theme park is only a test model, never meant to fly in space (still capable of atmospheric flights, as I understood). And what was "discovered" is version 2.01 - there's even a photo in Russian Wiki article.

Burn a Buran Day

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh no, my secret got out!

I was collecting them for the Burn a Buran Day. Anyone wanna contribute?

Re:Burn a Buran Day

[tverbeek]

I have no mod points, but I must laugh.

Kudos to advocate_one

[Zontar_Thing_From_Ve]

I know that Soviet Russia meme gets overdone, but that is one of the funniest things I've seen here in a long time. Well done, advocate_one!

That's not a junkyard

[Anonymous Coward]

That's the backyard of the Russian Museum of National Science.

-s

Exact translation

[Anonymous Coward]

As a native Russian speaker - here is my attempt at literary English translation:

Sometimes unimaginable happens. You would think that abandoned space ship on the streets of Moscow is realm of science fiction.
But unfortunately - this is a sad reality. Our correspondent found Soviet spaceship "Buran" abandoned in a heap of garbage on the
outskirts of the capital. Nobody cares about what used to be a symbol of space ambitions and achievements of our country.

Buran in Germany-

[gatzke]

There is a Buran in Germany at the Speyer Technik museum.

http://blog.flightstory.net/681/russian-space-shuttle-buran-transported-to-german-museum/
http://sinsheim.technik-museum.de/node/1327
http://sinsheim.technik-museum.de/en

They have two awesome sister technical museums near Frankfurt/Stuttgart. Sinsheim has planes (both supersonic passenger planes) and the Buran is at the Speyer along with more space stuff. Both have a good amount of military stuff and tons of autos. Trains. Model trains. Chainsaws. Sewing machines. Steam Engines. Automatic organs. Motorcycles. A lot of the planes are set up so you can crawl around in them, and you can get very close to a lot of the cars.

Also, they are simple museums, not a lot of glitz or reading. Here is a car, model, year. Here are some more.

However, the best part may be the rides. Germans have a different sense of liability. They have crazy rides that are not supervised, very much buyer beware. Six story steel tube slides. Self loading roller coasters and go-carts. The best was a boat jump thing that winches you up a include, then drops you down a rail into a pool. Awesome fun.

I love reading about the Buran

[mdm-adph]

...and it's fully automated first flight. As I recall, it did the whole thing under independent computer control -- was this an incredible achievement for the time?

Re:I love reading about the Buran

[wisdom_brewing]

Yes

Why is it sad?

[digitalhermit]

I understand that there's a memory associated with the object and certainly the shuttle played a role in Earth history. But ultimately, it's just an object. As I'm gearing and girding up for another hurricane season, I keep on thinking how much *stuff* I have. I admire those people -- and in Russia it seems to be a cultural thing -- who can easily give up objects. Maybe it's years of living under the USSR, or maybe it's the bleak landscape (in some areas), but my Russian friends seem not to fret about throwing things away. Me? I have a ticket stub from a U2 concert that I'm keeping. I have a cigarette lighter from my crashed 3000GT. I have a couple cartridges from an Atari 2600. They're just junk, but I have not been able to throw them away.

Hell, maybe it's the crappy cars they keep on telling me about. All of them were just a moment away from the trash heap anyway.

Re:Why is it sad?

[JustNiz]

>> maybe it's the crappy cars they keep on telling me about. All of them were just a moment away from the trash heap anyway.\

Boy those Russians really did copy *everything* from America.

Re:Why is it sad?

[OmniGeek]

For me, as a space enthusiast and aerospace professional, the sad part is that *anyone* would get a shuttle orbiter project so close to operational that they could launch, orbit, and land a fully-automated prototype -- and then just lose that entire program. The physical remnant is, as you say, just "stuff," and not really important in itself. What I (and, I believe, others) mourn is the loss of a manned space-launch program that came THAT close to being operational, regardless of just whose program it was. I, for one, still believe that the more different parties we have with active space programs, the better it is for humanity as a whole; there's a big solar system out there, with both resources and hazards aplenty, and the long-term benefit of the species definitely includes being active in space.

Re:Why is it sad?

[interval1066]

"I admire those people -- and in Russia it seems to be a cultural thing -- who can easily give up objects. Maybe it's years of living under the USSR, or maybe it's the bleak landscape (in some areas), but my Russian friends seem not to fret about throwing things away. Me? I have a ticket stub from a U2 concert that I'm keeping. I have a cigarette lighter from my crashed 3000GT."

I think your over-generalizing in your grand self-psychoanalysis of this story. People keep things, from Russia to, apparently, your house. I suggest that rather than draw parallels between your own rather nutty para psychological profile to Soviet times, you instead look to more practical matters such as the costs involved in housing and upkeep of a huge spacecraft like the Buran. As a symbol of Soviet technical achievement having made one un-manned space flight, it ranks with the Sputnik. Compared with your self-absorbed proclivity to pack rat junk, its not even in the same ballpark. Not even on the same planet. End of discussion.

Re:Why is it sad?

[Wyatt Earp]

Crappy Russian cars were copies of BMW and Fiats.

Re:Why is it sad?

[digitalhermit]

I agree... But I also think that we spend far too much time looking at past accomplishments rather than pushing forward. Keeping a hunk of metal around to inspire a child (or an adult for that matter) may be valid, but maybe those funds are better spent on telescopes or model rockets.

 

Re:Why is it sad?

[digitalhermit]

Compared with your self-absorbed proclivity to pack rat junk, its not even in the same ballpark. Not even on the same planet.

It actually is on the same planet. The rest of your post is invalidated. I win.

Re:Why is it sad?

[JustNiz]

Interesting.
One of the most reliable (and fun to drive) cars I ever had was an old fiat.

Re:Why is it sad?

[Wyatt Earp]

The Ural motorcycle is derived from BMW hardware the Nazis gave the Soviets right before Operation Barbarossa kicked off, kind of a payment for invading Poland.

I oversimplified the origins of the Soviet auto industry, they had alot of help. Ford came in and set factories up in the late 20s and early 30s, but then left, leaving hardware and knowledge behind.

The FIAT derived cars were later, the craptastic Lada export from AvtoVAZ was a Fiat 124-based VAZ-2101

There was alot of British and American technology shares during WW2 that helped Soviet car tech along, then there was another push of European and American sharing in the 1970s and even today that continues with former-Soviet car makers licensing technology, importing parts and licensing models.

I don't think, from a quick look, they are as far along with having design centers like China, Brazil or the Republic of Korea are, but they are farther along than India is.

Re:Why is it sad?

[shutdown -p now]

For many Russians, it's sad because it's a symbol of a gone era where, as far as many people are concerned, life was just generally better (and it's a symbol of that in particular, too).

Now as to your comparisons... if there was something we could point to and say, "see, Buran is gone, but this here is so much better" - that would be another story. But we don't have such a thing. It's gone, and its place is empty now. And people don't like empty places which were once full.

Re:Why is it sad?

[shutdown -p now]

For me, as a space enthusiast and aerospace professional, the sad part is that *anyone* would get a shuttle orbiter project so close to operational that they could launch, orbit, and land a fully-automated prototype -- and then just lose that entire program.

It's true, but if you'd make a list of all Soviet/Russian losses through late 80s - early 90s, I suspect Buran would be pretty low on the list. Things like this take precedence.

Ozymandias if ever there was one

[Anonymous Coward]

My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings. Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair.

Re:Ozymandias if ever there was one

[Archon-X]

Actually, this would be it:
http://www.ninjito.com/images/2008-09-12/qx-mongolia-warrior-2.jpg

Soviet Warrior, loose translation is: that which was built by the people will be protected for the people. ..and yet..

translation

[Anonymous Coward]

Translation:
Impossible is possible. It would seem, that space ship on the street of Moscow - it's from science fiction. But no, this is very real. Correspondent of "" found soviet orbital "Buran" laying around, just like garbage in the suburbs of capital. No one cares, that it was symbol of cosmic might of our country.

Symbol of Soviet Power?

[PowerVegetable]

I'm not sure I'd call Buran a symbol of Soviet power. If i remember correctly, it never had a manned flight and the only fully completed orbiter got just one unmanned flight.

Sure, a complete unmanned demonstration of a return-to-earth spaceship is impressive, but I'd hardly call this thing a "symbol" of anything outside of the Soviet Union's passion for the me-too copycat Space Race.

If I were nominating symbols of the Soviet space program, I'd go with Mir, Sputnik, Venera, Soyuz, Progress, the Proton rocket - all groundbreaking projects and far more important than Buran.

Re:Symbol of Soviet Power?

[interval1066]

"If i remember correctly, it never had a manned flight and the only fully completed orbiter got just one unmanned flight."

THAT is the question I was wondering about; was a Buran ever launched? I remember when they trotted that thing out. My first reaction was "Oh yeah, they copied the shuttle." Except bigger. But then, nothing. I in fact distinctly recall wondering in the late 90's wtf ever happened to it. I guess the Soviets couldn't afford to fill the gas tanks.

Re:Symbol of Soviet Power?

[Anonymous Coward]

Single successful unmanned flight in 1988.
Received some limited non-catastrophic but expensive to replace burn-through on reentry.
This vehicle was destroyed in a Hangar-Collapse in 2002.

The actual Buran orbital vehicle is somewhat smaller than the Space Shuttle orbiter, with less payload mass.

Re:Symbol of Soviet Power?

[Anonymous Coward]

I once had dinner at the home of the civilian reentry control manager. She said that the Buran was a military project not covered by her department but it had only gone up once unmanned.

Re:Symbol of Soviet Power?

[shutdown -p now]

It's a symbol of Soviet power for Russians, because Soviet Union had the resources and the motivation to research and implement the thing, while Russia has neither today. Also, because its success (the unmanned flight) was still in Soviet time, and its failure was not associated with any technical difficulties etc, but solely with the reformed country being unable and unwilling to work on such large-scale projects - a political thing.

Re:Symbol of Soviet Power?

[Anonymous Coward]

An I guess you couldn't afford to follow the news back then, or look it up on wikipedia now.

Re:Symbol of Soviet Power?

[interval1066]

Oh yeah, I live my life based on what's happening with the buran. Miscreant.

Translated Russian Page Article

[PyrousLavawalker]

Here is the Russian translation according to google translate. And unprecedented case. Seemingly abandoned spaceship on the streets of Moscow - it is something from the realm of fantasy. But alas, this is the true reality. Correspondent "MK" discovered orbiting Soviet "Buran" play like garbage on the outskirts of the capital. Nobody cares what was once a symbol of cosmic power of our country. Natalia Muschinkina Views: 41,285

Slashfic?

[dragonhunter21]

From the pictures, the Buran looks like the Space Shuttle screwed a Concorde.

duh

[Anonymous Coward]

http://englishrussia.com/index.php/2008/07/30/where-do-shuttles-go/#more-2006 that wasn't so hard to google, was it?

Dear Sir/Madam..

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm Mikhael Afrcanvsky. I'm for the former administrator of the Russian Space Agency. I have in my possession in the outskirts of Moscow a fully functional Buran spaceship. I'm able to sell it for 419 MILLION DOLLARS for foregin investors. Unfortunately, due to my country currency crises I have currently no money. A common friend refered you as being an honest and hardworking person. If you're willing to help me covering initial transaction costs and shipping, I'll glad share with you 10% of the amount received from the investors: no less than FORTY MILLION DOLLARS.

Yours,
Mikhael Afrcanvsky.

Come on

[radioid]

This is Slashdot, not English Russia.

Russia looks like fun!

[F34nor]

Naked chicks, booze, flipping over cars, and rusting aerospace; fucking awesome.

Didn't they sell it on Ebay?

[scharkalvin]

I seem to remember a slashdot story from a few years ago that the Russians had put the shuttle up for sale on Ebay.

Re:Didn't they sell it on Ebay?

[penguinchris]

According to an article someone else posted above - http://www.spacedaily.com/news/buran-00a.html - you may be referring to a theme park company selling their prototype-Buran-turned-ride. They say it was a publicity stunt and that they don't have the legal right to sell it, even though they own it and operate it as a ride.

Um, Google Translate?

[gravis777]

Of course I don't read russian, so it might also be a carnival ride rusting.

http://translate.google.com/translate?js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mk.ru%2Fphoto%2Fsocial%2F1090-buran-prinesennyiy-v-zhertvu.html

Seriously, how hard is that?

military operating craft just like this

[peter303]

There were several articles about a secretive "mini-shuttle" being tested by the US military. Its supposed to be maneuverable in orbit, and perhaps landable.

I have a tile from it...

[Wyatt Earp]

Well a replacement tile, they made about 3.5 million extra tiles and in the late 90s I was able to get one for about $45. Its black and would have gone on the right front section.

Side note, the An-225 was up here in Anchorage in late June and I happened to drive by it at Ted Stevens International Airport. Big goddamned plane, dwarfed all the 747-400s it was parked near and made the MD-11s look miniature.

Re:I have a tile from it...

[toxonix]

Whats it made of? Carbon-Carbon or something less expensive? (Asbestos?) I've seen the An-225 at a distance and it is amazing. The size is completely insane. It looked like its wings were going to scrape the ground, then after lift off they straightened out.

Re:I have a tile from it...

[Wyatt Earp]

Amorphous silica fibers with a backing that's some sort of fiber to adhere it to the craft Nomex or the Soviet version I think. Theres a location number on it as well.

On Shuttle that tile area is covered in - High-temperature reusable surface insulation (HRSI) tiles, used on the orbiter underside. Made of coated LI-900 Silica ceramics. Used where reentry temperature is below 1260 C.

The black coating on the tiles is Reaction Cured Glass (RCG) of which tetrasilicide and borosilicate glass are some of several ingredients.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_thermal_protection_system#High-temperature_reusable_surface_insulation_.28HRSI.29

Google translation...

[Annorax]

http://translate.google.com/ comes up with this translation:

"And unprecedented case. Seemingly abandoned spaceship on the streets of Moscow - it is something from the realm of fantasy. But alas, this is the true reality. Correspondent "MK" discovered orbiting Soviet "Buran" play like garbage on the outskirts of the capital. Nobody cares what was once a symbol of cosmic power of our country.

Natalia Muschinkina

Views: 101,149"

I wonder what freight is

[wowbagger]

I wonder what the freight costs are from Moscow to Hutchinson?

Re:I wonder what freight is

[CompMD]

As someone who loves that museum and tries to stop in whenever I'm in Reno County, I would certainly donate to the cause.

Re:I wonder what freight is

[wowbagger]

Considering that the KCSC has the largest collection of Russian gear outside of Moscow, and is one of the top space artifact restoration sites in the world, it really is the most logical choice.

I'm glad at least one /.er got the joke.

To hell with the Russian space shuttle

[GodfatherofSoul]

I see a much more enjoyable ride on that web page.

Score 1 for Russia

[eyenot]

At least in Russia:

1. they know when to decomission;

2. they know better than to reuse old materials forever;

3. their market is free enough that a private scrapper can end up with space-age materials if they are interested in purchasing the item.

In America, that shuttle would be getting disintigrated with live crew aboard and no private entity could ever expect to get their hands on something of potential interest like such expensive, "sensitive" former NASA equipment, even if they could pay for it.

mod parent up

[joggle]

The parent is absolutely correct.

Rust In Peace

[FrostedWheat]

Now that would make an awesome episode of Scrapheap Challenge!

Some Buran Articles Online

[Leomania]

There's a good history of Buran over at Astronautix. First the article about the craft itself, another (with a lot of overlap) about the project, then a short piece about the Buran Analogue. A very good write-up with several good photos (sad ones at the end) over at Aerospaceweb.

If you've got some time to kill, you can find a Buran mock-up sitting at the Baikonur Cosmodrome on Google Earth. Also the final resting place of the Buran that flew and the Energia reusable launch vehicle, but it's a little hard to locate.

Not the actual Buran

[LanceUppercut]

The fate of the actual flying Buran is rather well-documented, as well as the fate of the second flight-capable vehicle. What you see in those pictures is neither. This is probably one of the full-scale mock ups, which is known to have ended up in an amusement park.

Eastern Bloc just threw stuff away...

[smithmc]

Reading about the Buran doesn't really surprise me. Back around '95, I was on a business trip in the (fairly new) Czech Republic, and one day on a drive between Hradec Kralove and Pardubice, we passed this junkyard, and it was full of scrapped tanks, and artillery pieces and such, and to cap it all off there were a few old MiGs (old, like -15s and -17s IIRC) strewn across the top of the pile. All just pleasantly rusting away in the Bohemian countryside...

more info about Russian test shuttle OK-2.01

[Anonymous Coward]

This was one of the many test shuttles that were built during their development. One is in Germany now, another is a display in a park.
It is a waste of history to just dump these things like garbage but then NASA does the same plus the cost and paperwork to move them is very high. More info about this specific one (OK-2.01) can be found at the following URL, http://www.buran-energia.com/bourane-buran/bourane-modele-201.php

Bunny Ears

[sycodon]

Screw the shuttle...what's up with the dude wearing the bunny ears?

buran fate

[Anonymous Coward]

its been there for ages, according to sources its one of the training mockups, the real one died when the hangar roof collapsed on it
there are few more mockups in baikurn

overall the soviet rocket projects turned out to be much more cost effective and reliable than shuttle project

In Solviet Slashdot...

[Anonymous Coward]

story read YOU!

"could've" does the trick

[DABANSHEE]

problem are the dickheads thinking one has said "could of" & daring to issue a corrections, leading one having to explain that one's using an abbreviated form of "could have" spelt "c-o-u-l-d-'-v-e".

Re:"could've" does the trick

[Anonymous Coward]

spelt

Would you people stop using that word. It promotes FAR too much controversy.

Authentication

[xrayspx]

To tell if it's real, we can check to see if there is a tape loop of Shirley Bassey running at all times.

Did it look anything like this?

[Anonymous Coward]

This or
was that too graphic?

I do know that the inspiration for many aircraft are stolen by mother nature. NASA should and Sobeit Rusha should sue mother nature for making flies all these thousands of years using stolen IP!

I'm almost positive that's not a real Buran

[beanfeast]

I was in Moscow in May last year. I went on a boat trip along the Moskva River and passed a Buran in Gorky Park. I immediately altered my plans for the following day so as to include a visit.

The next day, May 28th 2009, as I walked towards the Buran I was mortified to see guys with hammers, shovels and brushes starting to demolish it.

I wasn't able to get right up to it to take photos because some uniformed guard insisted that taking photographs was forbidden, but you can see one of the surreptitious snaps I took here - http://www.samoa.co.uk/images/proc0023.jpg

If you look carefully, in the image linked to above, at the nose section where the tiles have been stripped away, you will see that the tiles were actually mounted on wooden lathes.

A somewhat better photo of the nose section can be found here - http://www.samoa.co.uk/images/proc0024.jpg

A little bit of Googling and it turns out that the Buran in Gorky Park was actually a simulator.

The OP was correct, it was a carnival ride.

Im

[Anonymous Coward]

about 90% sure that that's 2.01, not a sim or 2.02

Translation by Babelfish:

[Anonymous Coward]

And [nebyvaemoe] occurs. It would seem, the deserted spacecraft on the street of Moscow - this something from the region of fantasy. But, alas, this is genuine reality. Correspondent “MK” revealed orbital Soviet “snow-storm” by that dragging along, as if garbage, in the capital outskirts. There is no one matter to the fact that was once the symbol of the space power of our country.

typical nerds ...

[Dabido]

You missed the interesting link to photos further down on that same page!!! http://www.mk.ru/photo/social/1013-singapur-razyigrali-v-butyilochku.html

Info on OK-GLI available on the museum website

[JerryP]

Here is the website for the airframe on display in Speyer. The vehicle was discovered in Bahrain by the director of the museum and transported to Germany a couple of years ago. The (german-language) audio comment of the embedded video mentions that it is the only remaining Buran that actually was flying, if only for tests of the automated landing system.