Recently. In an article in New Scientist, I was finding out some very interesting fact about about the Soviet spacecraft called Buran, cosmetically a copy to the American shuttle.
Buran had only one launch on 15 November 1988 and even though it performed flawlessly, it was scrapped less than a year later, never to be made man ready. It seems Buran was a victim of normalization of relations with the west. Buran's only mission was to be a weapons delivery system (makes you think long and hard about the mini shuttle the military is flying as you read this.) and since there was no longer a military mission and never had been one for the private sector, there was no longer any need for Buran.
However it still is an interesting ship to talk about. First off, even though it bore a cosmetic resemblance to the west's shuttle, it was in fact radically different in many aspects. The biggest example was the craft had no external tank. Buran was bolted to an over-sized Energia booster which did all the lifting. Buran had no engines of its own. This aspect alone made it a much safer system to operate. Another major difference was to be ejection seats for all crew members even those on the mid deck which would have launched sideways.
The rest of the article is fascinating. Read it here
Buran had only one launch on 15 November 1988 and even though it performed flawlessly, it was scrapped less than a year later, never to be made man ready. It seems Buran was a victim of normalization of relations with the west. Buran's only mission was to be a weapons delivery system (makes you think long and hard about the mini shuttle the military is flying as you read this.) and since there was no longer a military mission and never had been one for the private sector, there was no longer any need for Buran.
However it still is an interesting ship to talk about. First off, even though it bore a cosmetic resemblance to the west's shuttle, it was in fact radically different in many aspects. The biggest example was the craft had no external tank. Buran was bolted to an over-sized Energia booster which did all the lifting. Buran had no engines of its own. This aspect alone made it a much safer system to operate. Another major difference was to be ejection seats for all crew members even those on the mid deck which would have launched sideways.
The rest of the article is fascinating. Read it here
