Abandoned Soviet Space Shuttles

a reply to: LogicalGraphitti

On a completely unmanned flight.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Buran was an incredible piece of engineering, and the capabilities/potential that it and the Energia system offered will forever be one of the greatest "what if"s of human spaceflight. Right up there with NERVA and the Nova family of rockets.

By relocating the engines to the Energia core, Buran had the potential for MUCH faster turn-arounds of the orbiter between flights, and Energia, by having the ability to fly entirely on its own, essentially gave the Russians a booster with the potential to do everything that the SLS might do, and 30 or so years ago.

There's a good argument to be made that the fall of the Soviet Union in 1990 was the greatest blow that space exploration had ever seen. Between the plans that the US had for Space Station Freedom, SDI, and the SLC-6 Shuttle flights, and the plans that the USSR had with Polyus, Energia, Mir 2, and Buran, it's pretty clear that had the USSR survived, the 90's was shaping up to be another "space race" decade that could well have put the 60's to shame.

If only those @$*%ing reactor operators at Chernobyl hadn't ^&#*ed up so magnificently, we very well could have had a mars landing by now.

They also made these cute little space planes, I'm not sure if they worked though. Maybe it was a spacecraft fighter.

originally posted by: weirdguy
They also made these cute little space planes, I'm not sure if they worked though. Maybe it was a spacecraft fighter.

They tested them for landings I remember thinking they looked like battles tar galactica because the wings can actually fold up for launch.

Over the years the Soviets and those who followed have done some pretty cool things spaceflight and aviation related. Seems though like their underpinning philosophy has always been from a different point of beginning. The soviets always seemed to take a more 'brute strength' approach to development, build a bigger hammer, whereas the west took a lighter / faster approach. Both approaches have their risks and rewards. Though when it comes to spaceflight in particular, the 'brute strength' approach can make things considerably more difficult.

One thing I always found curious about the Russian manned space program was why they always chose to return to land, as opposed to the sea. It's not that the sea is any 'softer' to land in really (not at the speeds they're traveling anyway), but the sea sure does remove a lot of other variables. I always wondered if the Russians returning to land didn't speak more to the capability (or lack thereof) of their naval technology and abilities.

This looks really interesting. Thanks for sharing and giving me a something new to watch for a bit!

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

I'm going to take a complete guess and say it is due to geography.

The US has unique geography of being bordered by the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean. The US as a result has an enormous Navy on both sides (as far as I know this was far bigger than the USSR) to project force, but can also be used to recover and track spacecraft. The US is also located in the subtropic and temperate climate zones with year-round relatively mild weather, especially down south where the rockets are launched. Launching rockets from near the equator is also beneficial for a number of reasons. The US is also much more densely populated than the USSR and placed some of its launch areas and infrastructure by the coast (I'm thinking Cape Canaveral & Vandenberg). All these factors point to recovering spacecraft from the sea.

Meanwhile Russia borders the Arctic, which gets extremely cold, dark, and is frozen for much of the year. I'm not even sure if most launches at moderate inclinations would pass over the arctic. The Pacific Ocean is extremely far away from European Russia and Kazakhstan (where most launches were)) and is possibly too close to Japan. The Black Sea, and the Caspian Sea are too small, given each orbit will pass over a different point due to the earths rotation, it's not necessarily easy to simply choose a specific place to land without using much fuel. And the Baltics are also too small and too close to NATO. The USSR was also sparsely populated. The Soviet nuclear missiles were launched from central USSR and the early manned spaceflight missions were based from these designs. All these factors point to recovering spacecraft in Kazakhstan.

It's obvious, look at the map.!