Comments on Dark Roasted Blend: Rare Photos of the Russian "Buran" Space Program

Anon, the one that was in Australia -- it's the ve...

2008-06-24T04:52:00.000-07:00

Anon, the one that was in Australia -- it's the very same that finally arrived in Germany some time ago. The company couldn't make profit by using it as an attraction, so they've shipped it to warehouse in Bahrain and just let it sit there.

One of these shuttles is in Australia. It was at t...

2008-05-07T19:33:00.000-07:00

One of these shuttles is in Australia. It was at the worlds fair, and the russians didn't have the cash to fly it home. So it still sits there to this day.

Martjin, Daap - I'm glad it's in the good hands no...

2008-05-05T14:04:00.000-07:00

Martjin, Daap - I'm glad it's in the good hands now.

Correction, that should be the Speyer location of ...

2008-05-05T13:03:00.000-07:00

Correction, that should be the Speyer location of the Tecknik Museum...

The 'German museum' mentioned here several times, ...

2008-05-05T04:08:00.000-07:00

The 'German museum' mentioned here several times, is the Technik Museum, and the Buran is shipped to the Sinsheim location of the museum. See http://www.technik-museum.de.

One of the Buran's was stored for a couple of year...

2008-05-01T09:51:00.000-07:00

One of the Buran's was stored for a couple of years in a shipping yard in Bahrain (Persian Gulf). I was visiting the yard and saw a space shuttle type of craft, found later on the internet that it was one of the Buran's. The wings where taken off but you could enter the Buran trough a opening in the hull. Took home one of the smaller panels from the cockpit as a souvenir.

Last thing I heard that is will be transported to a museum in Mannhein, Gemany.

Martijn(Netherlands)

One reason they might have decided to have it hori...

2008-04-30T15:11:00.000-07:00

One reason they might have decided to have it horizontal when transporting to the launchpad is that it's possible to accelerate much faster. The angular momentum on an already erected rocket is so much greater that any acceleration beyond a bare minimum risks damage or even toppling the rocket.

hb - great link, thank you!

2008-04-16T00:32:00.000-07:00

hb - great link, thank you!

Yoy may be interested in the end of the Buran stor...

2008-04-12T04:43:00.000-07:00

Yoy may be interested in the end of the Buran story: The last prototype has been discovered by a television team somewhere in Bahrain back in 2004. These days, it is on its way to a museum in Germany. Some pics can be found here: http://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/weltall/0,1518,546884,00.html

I remember sitting infront of the TV and watching ...

2008-01-09T02:57:00.000-08:00

I remember sitting infront of the TV and watching the launch of Buran/Energija live!

I was a small boy at that time (from former GDR, east germany) and it was a huge event for me...

On early Soviet shuttle concept TM pic: Twin-tail ...

2008-01-05T01:44:00.000-08:00

On early Soviet shuttle concept TM pic:

Twin-tail space shuttle, two stage to orbit:
the perennial favorite of Popular Science magazine covers.

The only thing missing is a wheel-shaped space station.

Note what appears to be a flight engineer behind the cockpit,
and either a political officer or a flight attendant in the next
compartment.

Great collection, to add:Ultimate Buran collection...

2007-12-16T18:33:00.000-08:00

Great collection, to add:

Ultimate Buran collection area on NASASpaceflight.com is here:

http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=636&start=1

and on their L2 section they have hours of never before seen video.

''Pre-launch moving of "Buran" and "Energia" on ra...

2007-12-16T05:35:00.000-08:00

''Pre-launch moving of "Buran" and "Energia" on rails''
The last two photos are of Proton, not Buran or Energia.

Proton is a much smaller rocket (A medium one). You can also see the 6 outer tanks and 6 engines attached to them, no central engines, very different from Energia's 4 boosters and 3 core engines.

I'm surprised nobody noticed yet.
Proton is a sixties design, still flying today, commercially, although they just had one launch failure with the second stage just after staging.

"khathi: ejection seats would not have helped the ...

2007-12-02T06:13:00.000-08:00

"khathi: ejection seats would not have helped the challenger crew - they (still) would have been incinerated at the speed they were traveling."

According to:
http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question/investigations/q0122.shtml

The Challenger was at 46,000 ft travelling at 1.9 Mach when the disaster struck.

According to:
http://space.newscientist.com/article/mg14920124.300-please-keep-your-seat.html

The Zvezda K-36 ejection seat of the Buran allows cosmonauts to eject at 30Km (98,000 feet) and 4 Mach.

Columbia disaster... that's another story.

Thank you for the pics. I've been fascinated by space ships since I was a child and this is the first time I see Buran from inside. So I'm very grateful :)

Fedor... images fixed

2007-11-29T16:37:00.000-08:00

Fedor... images fixed

Can't view the pictures in their original form, Fl...

2007-11-28T20:09:00.000-08:00

Can't view the pictures in their original form, Flickr just says private page. Any chance of a fix? Cause these are great.

There were advanced plans to improve the Saturn V ...

2007-11-28T19:08:00.000-08:00

There were advanced plans to improve the Saturn V as well. One was to stretch the tanks and add a sixth main engine for a total of 9 million pounds of lift-off thrust. Another was to add solid, strap-on boosters. Yet another of the more ambitious proposals was to separate the main engines from the tanks and parachute them down for re-use. I actually knew one of the engineers who helped develop the F-1. He said that the only reason the engines were not re-useable was because they were at the bottom of the Atlantic. The engines were actually designed to be able to be used five to seven times. But, alas, so many good ideas never to be tried. Sigh.

I am sorry to disappoint you, but the Baikal story...

2007-11-28T08:52:00.000-08:00

I am sorry to disappoint you, but the Baikal story is a well done 1st April joke, by Vadim Lukashevich, the webmaster of buran.ru - the most comprehensive website on Buran project.

Objection! Crew capsule remained intact after orbi...

2007-11-27T04:57:00.000-08:00

Objection! Crew capsule remained intact after orbiter disintegration, and remained intact (and crew alive, albeit with at least several crewmembers inconscious) until the final strike into the water. Had it been equipped with ejection seats, crew could safely eject during "drop" phase.

Well, Saturn V COULD've been topped -- if the whol...

2007-11-27T04:51:00.000-08:00

Well, Saturn V COULD've been topped -- if the whole Energia-Buran project wasn't scrapped, that is. You see, Energia was a highly scalable design, and you could've easily bolt up to a four additional fist stage boosters (IIRC, some of the pics even show this config, sadly, it was never really flown) effectively doubling its capacity -- up to 175 tonnes. But you are right, LEO capacity for standard config was just 100 tonnes, 20 tonnes less than for Saturn V (which could lift just 120 tonnes to LEO, not 200).

Another point -- the orbiter that was destroyed in 2002 was OK-1K1, the very same that was flown in 1988. Another one, OK-1K2, one that should've fly manned mission, was never completed and is still mothballed in Baikonur, IIRC.

khathi: ejection seats would not have helped the c...

2007-11-26T19:03:00.000-08:00

khathi: ejection seats would not have helped the challenger crew - they (still) would have been incinerated at the speed they were traveling.

>> This "Buran" is mothballed in>> storage, most o...

2007-11-19T00:54:00.000-08:00

>> This "Buran" is mothballed in
>> storage, most of the others are
>> effectively destroyed.

It no longer exists either. The roof collapsed on it back in 2002.

khathi is essentially correct. The Buran was a pri...

2007-11-18T14:10:00.000-08:00

khathi is essentially correct. The Buran was a principally different vehicle, similar in appearance only. It is significantly smaller the the Shuttle as well. To call the Energia a launch vehicle in the same class as the Saturn V is technically correct but deceptive. The Saturn V had a design capacity of 200 tons to LEO (It actually lifted 156 tons to LEO with Apollo 17.). I think the Energia could manage just over 100 tons. Still, I don't mean to belittle the Energia. It is an impressive launch vehicle. But it is unlikely the Saturn V will be topped any time in the near future.

All similarities end after external appearances. T...

2007-11-17T21:23:00.000-08:00

All similarities end after external appearances. The main point of difference is that Space Shuttle is TWO-stage rocket -- first stage are solid boosters, while second stage is an orbiter itself. Buran-Energia is a three-stage rocket, Energia being a complete independent heavy-lift booster in the same class as Saturn V. Orbiter is just a payload (or a third stage at most), and could be lifted to LEO without ever engaging its engines, which are much smaller and less powerful that Shuttle's ones. It had much more sophisticated avionics compared to early shuttles, as it could land automatically, and it was also equipped with ejection seats for all of crewmembers -- something that Challenger crew would sertainly wish they had.

I wish this was still in use. the entire system is...

2007-11-17T21:04:00.000-08:00

I wish this was still in use. the entire system is more capable than the space shuttle and can lift more into orbit.