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ryschwith t1_j4x8cem wrote

It was called the Buran.

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gadget850 t1_j4x9jb8 wrote

Only one Buran was ever fully assembled and it made one uncrewed flight. It sat in storage in a hangar until the roof collapsed.

https://www.wired.com/story/jonk-buran-photo-gallery/

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10235217/Eerie-photos-abandoned-Soviet-space-shuttle-left-gather-dust-enormous-rusting-hangar.html

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MrZorg58 t1_j4xbmnn wrote

Actually they put jets on it too, and flew it around like a plane LOL.

https://youtu.be/2ifMPiPpxKo

https://youtu.be/g_MjTjEXi7I

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dbx999 t1_j4xge02 wrote

That is so fucking weird. I never knew this knockoff of the US shuttle could achieve take off like an airplane. I thought it was just designed for a controlled glide landing.

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mistrrhappy t1_j4xhxlc wrote

They took the overall design and made some real improvements. Better use of the space once the main engines were made unnecessary by Energia's immense capability.

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dbx999 t1_j4xi8p1 wrote

Why didn’t they use it in space?

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Express-Set-8843 t1_j4xivee wrote

Cost and timing. It was really expensive, funding disappeared, then so did the Soviet Union.

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mistrrhappy t1_j4xj828 wrote

They ran out of money, unfortunately. Energia and their shuttles, Buran and Pichka were very ambitious, and very expensive. The Buran was launched unmanned into space, and orbited the Earth twice, and made a fully automated landing. A successful first flight by any measure. Sadly, the collapse of the Soviet Union meant that the budgets for these programs weren't maintainable financially. The USSR had some very good aerospace engineers. It's a shame, really. You should read all the links others have posted on this thread.

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duckdodgers4 t1_j4xjgb3 wrote

Actually the so called knockoff came straight from the original NASA files that were in the National Library. Since NASA is a public domain organisation, the files were not flagged as confidential. Russians were able to take copies of those files pretty easily. When NASA found out what was going on they made slight changes to the original files, e.g. the tiles that protect the vehicle during re-entry were left with with the early versions. You can find more about this on the internet but here's a link https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna18686550

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MrZorg58 t1_j4yeq5a wrote

Not an exact copy, there were several versions of the shuttle design, before the final was settled on. Burt Rutan was consulting with NASA then, and told them, this thing is going to get people killed.

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pimpbot666 t1_j4xjidk wrote

Wow! I never knew they got it off the ground except for the one unmanned launch.

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pimpbot666 t1_j4xienw wrote

Sad, it is a part of spaceflight history. They should have put it in a museum if they had the budget.

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healing-souls t1_j4x83cx wrote

They were never fully developed nor flew. but did have a successful launch and landing per the comment below.

The program was discontinued decades ago if I recall correctly.

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smokehidesstars t1_j4x9j9m wrote

Actually . . . it did fly. November 15th, 1988. Two orbits and a runway landing, all 100% automated.

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topcat5 t1_j4xbt7e wrote

The program ended when the Soviet Union fell. There was no money.

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[deleted] t1_j4x8d6u wrote

[removed]

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failurebeatssuccess t1_j4x8ynw wrote

Nobody is disputing that. We are talking about the Soviet shuttle programme. That is the question on this thread. It never flew. Gargarin went up to space on a Vostock, not a knock-off space shuttle, had it been the latter he would likely have never made it.

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MordantBengal t1_j4xi315 wrote

That makes sense, I was thinking in less pedantic terms. A shuttle that takes you to space. I didn't realize that a space shuttle referred to a specific design of spacecraft.

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a_southern_dude t1_j4x9eq2 wrote

I think u/healing-souls was saying that the Buran shuttles were never fully-developed. He's right.

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topcat5 t1_j4xcf6m wrote

Incorrect. They launched one, it orbited the Earth and returned successfully. In 1988. The program ended because the Soviet Union fell.

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healing-souls t1_j4xgpe7 wrote

launching once isn't fully developed.

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topcat5 t1_j4xh5yi wrote

What was it missing?

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healing-souls t1_j4xuvek wrote

well they never tested any engine configurations other than the 4 rocket one they used for the one launch. In theory it could use anywhere from 2-8 engines.

They never used it to put anything into orbit so none of the satellite deployment stuff was ever tested.

And they never launched with humans so none of the life support or other functions were fully vetted.

Read the article someone else posted about it, it's a good read.

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healing-souls t1_j4xa1vw wrote

um, please do a cursory read of the actual title of a post before spewing nonsense.

​

:-)

​

The OP asked about their space shuttle program, not their space program.

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Zero7CO t1_j4xh0kt wrote

My Dad went over to the Soviet Union right before it collapsed and was able to purchase a whole bunch of Soviet equipment for his space museum…including a Soyuz he later sold to NASA they used for their Soyuz training in regards to the ISS. When he was over there they literally tried to sell him the Buran. It was this crazy time when everything in their space program not nailed down to a launch pad went up for sale to the highest bidder. Oligarchs gotta oligarch.

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dfernr10 t1_j4x9w19 wrote

If you want to learn from Buran, I STRONGLY recommend you this article. It is in spanish, so you may need to translate It, but I assure you. It is worthy. Checked the Google translation and it is workable.

The most complete lnformation about Buran that I've found comes from this article and another ones like it on that blog.

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Bipogram t1_j4xfc5a wrote

<holds hand to brow>

&gt;Does anyone have information about Russian space SHUTTLES?
Yes, a great many people know about Buran.

It wasn't a secret, unlike some of the soviet union's more exuberant missions (Polyot, for eg: or the Luna Korabyl's test flights: Kosmos 3 hundred and something)

I've two tiles from a Buran engineering spare, and had the pleasure of taking a ride in its simulator at Zhukovsky once.

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kyrsjo t1_j4xfy7u wrote

The aerodynamic model, which is slightly smaller (still big) and flew like a plane, is in a museum in Germany.

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failurebeatssuccess t1_j4x8fbs wrote

Its called the Buran. ANother ripoff - just like concordski and would likely have been about as safe.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buran_(spacecraft)

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DarkArcher__ t1_j4xb8qg wrote

Buran was by all means a better shuttle. Far safer, too. It could fly with more payload than the American Shuttle, and it could go all the way from takeoff to orbit to landing on a runway with no crew onboard, meaning that no crew had to be risked for missions that did not require them. It had far more abort options thanks to Energia's liquid boosters, which could be shut down unlike the SRBs on the American Shuttle. If the orbiter wasnt required, Energia could even fly on its own with massive payload making it more flexible.

Unfortunately Buran was really just the product of the cold war tensions. It was developed as a response to some capabilities the USSR thought the American Shuttle had, mainly in the realm of satellite recovery, which it did not. Therefore, and much like the MiG-25/F-15 situation, it was overbuilt. It came at a time where the USSR was speeding head first into economic collapse and despite the spacecraft's (and rocket's) fantastic capabilities, it just was not possible to finance a program like this. Buran ended up flying once, flawlessly, and Energia twice, equally flawlessly (despite the failure in the actual payload, Polyus).

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topcat5 t1_j4xblz5 wrote

Absolutely not. It was not a knockoff. There were significant differences in the design & Energia was a completely new launch platform.

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dfernr10 t1_j4x9cyu wrote

Nope. It was far more safe and better.

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AvcalmQ t1_j4xacby wrote

Well yeah, given it never had a live human occupant to kill so naturally it'd be safer.

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dfernr10 t1_j4xb9sm wrote

Not talking about that, but about the design. It was way safer than US Shuttle.

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[deleted] t1_j4xd0rb wrote

[deleted]

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Enorats t1_j4xhk7z wrote

It is fairly widely accepted to have been the safer of the two shuttle designs. The issues that the US shuttles ran into were addressed in the design of the Buran. The Buran didn't have debris from its own launch vehicle raining down on top of it for example.

The only reason they discontinued the program was because of the expense, and because they didn't really have a use for it. It was the smart call, though the smarter call would have been to never make it in the first place. The Shuttle probably set US space exploration back by decades, marvel (albeit flawed) of engineering that it was.

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[deleted] t1_j4xqq3t wrote

[deleted]

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dfernr10 t1_j4z8n0l wrote

I suggest you to read this article. Use the Google translation if you may the results are pretty accurate.

Of course, Buran never have the privilege to be flown more times to test It, but the engineering decisions were safer.

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RolandMT32 t1_j4xaj7d wrote

What's the significance of "SHUTTLES" being all uppercase here?

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Bipogram t1_j4xfhh8 wrote

Astonishment perhaps that they existed?

Wait till they find out about the VeGa and Venera programs!

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Ordinary-Noise9444 t1_j4xiylc wrote

Is this the one that's sitting abandoned in a warehouse?

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quick_dudley t1_j4xnn11 wrote

It's the one that was sitting abandoned in a warehouse until the warehouse collapsed

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Decronym t1_j50q35g wrote

Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:

|Fewer Letters|More Letters| |-------|---------|---| |Roscosmos|State Corporation for Space Activities, Russia| |SLS|Space Launch System heavy-lift| |SRB|Solid Rocket Booster| |STS|Space Transportation System (Shuttle)|

^([Thread #8452 for this sub, first seen 19th Jan 2023, 16:24]) ^[FAQ] ^([Full list]) ^[Contact] ^([Source code])

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