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Soviet version of the Space Shuttle

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Re: Soviet version of the Space Shuttle

#11

Post by pavel_lishin »

Soupy wrote: post #3

It's interesting to note that there was a recent story that went around in September about the Buran being "rediscovered" in a junkyard. This is interesting since the traditional history of the Buran states that it was destroyed when the hanger it was stored in collapsed. I don't read Russian so it was hard for me to follow the story so take this with a grain of salt. source: http://www.mk.ru/photo/social/1090-buran-…

Quick translation: "Even the impossible happens. You'd think that an abandoned spaceship laying on a Moscow street would be something out of science fiction. Alas, it's reality. Correspondent "MK" discovered the Soviet orbiter Buran laying, like garbage, on the outskirts of the capital. Nobody seems to care that at one point it was the symbol of our country's might in space."

(Disclaimer: haven't spoken Russian regularly since I was 10, but luckily, newspapers are written for that sort of literacy levels anyway.)

Re: Soviet version of the Space Shuttle

#12

Post by pavel_lishin »

burgerbrain wrote: post #7
thingie wrote: post #4

One interesting difference from the American program that had always intrigued me is that Buran was carried horizontally on a heavy launch pad with gear to erect the whole unit on the launch site, moving on pretty much ordinary railway tracks, hauled by off-the-shell diesel locomotives, while the Shuttle has to be moved in vertical position, very carefully and slowly, on a very special vehicle, that cannot be done in…

The Buran was also capable of landing entirely by itself, something I don't believe the shuttle can do even now.

I'm not sure what you mean, can you elaborate? Do you mean that Buran can land without computer assistance?

Re: Soviet version of the Space Shuttle

#13

Post by rriepe »

burgerbrain wrote: post #7
thingie wrote: post #4

One interesting difference from the American program that had always intrigued me is that Buran was carried horizontally on a heavy launch pad with gear to erect the whole unit on the launch site, moving on pretty much ordinary railway tracks, hauled by off-the-shell diesel locomotives, while the Shuttle has to be moved in vertical position, very carefully and slowly, on a very special vehicle, that cannot be done in…

The Buran was also capable of landing entirely by itself, something I don't believe the shuttle can do even now.

The shuttle always lands by itself. Looks like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-R2dCWZ92ew

If you've seen the shuttle on the back of a 747, that's just for transport, not landing.

Re: Soviet version of the Space Shuttle

#14

Post by smackfu »

thingie wrote: post #4

One interesting difference from the American program that had always intrigued me is that Buran was carried horizontally on a heavy launch pad with gear to erect the whole unit on the launch site, moving on pretty much ordinary railway tracks, hauled by off-the-shell diesel locomotives, while the Shuttle has to be moved in vertical position, very carefully and slowly, on a very special vehicle, that cannot be done in…

OTOH, the "very special vehicle" already existed from the Apollo program so it was pretty practical to reuse it.

There is actually a lot of history from the Apollo program on why they chose to use what they did. Trains and barges were considered as well as the crawler they ended up using. Remember that Cape Canaveral is on a marsh, and that they had to make a turn between the VAB and the launch pads.

Re: Soviet version of the Space Shuttle

#15

Post by Luc »

oiuytghyujki wrote: post #9
pvg wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of the infrastructure for storing and moving the Shuttle is inherited from the Apollo program. Whatever's going on here looks convoluted enough - http://farm1.static.flickr.com/107/315442494_6d3239a0ff.jpg http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2010/2028067672_2ba6479d74.jp... Seems pretty hard to tell what solution is 'obviously superior' unless you're a rocket-moving engineer or somesuch.

Supposedly Buran's launch pad is also due to this. Because it's pad was built on top of an earlier Apollo pad the shuttle launches in the wrong orientation and has to make a roll just after takeoff to head into orbit. The Russians copied this non-optimal arrangement for Buran believing that there must be some advantage that they didn't know about but Nasa had discovered,

So the Soviets copied this with no more than a shrug of the shoulders? That's kind of hard to believe. Those engineers were just as good, if not better, than the ones in the west...

Any rocket needs roll, pitch and yaw to get into the right orbit, or to reduce stress along a certain axis, or to orient comms antennas towards the ground. Saturn V did this too.

Re: Soviet version of the Space Shuttle

#16

Post by IgorPartola »

bane wrote: post #10
thingie wrote: post #4

One interesting difference from the American program that had always intrigued me is that Buran was carried horizontally on a heavy launch pad with gear to erect the whole unit on the launch site, moving on pretty much ordinary railway tracks, hauled by off-the-shell diesel locomotives, while the Shuttle has to be moved in vertical position, very carefully and slowly, on a very special vehicle, that cannot be done in…

It's likely that the Shuttle design may be lighter as it only has support weight in one direction while the Buran design requires it to have load bearing structures for two orientations.

Wouldn't you want structural integrity in all planes upon landing?

Re: Soviet version of the Space Shuttle

#17

Post by burgerbrain »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #12
burgerbrain wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Buran was also capable of landing entirely by itself, something I don't believe the shuttle can do even now.

I'm not sure what you mean, can you elaborate? Do you mean that Buran can land without computer assistance?

I mean that the Buran could (and did) land without human assistance. It basically did what the air-forces new toy did earlier this year, but back in 1988.

Re: Soviet version of the Space Shuttle

#18

Post by pvg »

Luc wrote: post #15
oiuytghyujki wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Supposedly Buran's launch pad is also due to this. Because it's pad was built on top of an earlier Apollo pad the shuttle launches in the wrong orientation and has to make a roll just after takeoff to head into orbit. The Russians copied this non-optimal arrangement for Buran believing that there must be some advantage that they didn't know about but Nasa had discovered,

So the Soviets copied this with no more than a shrug of the shoulders? That's kind of hard to believe. Those engineers were just as good, if not better, than the ones in the west... Any rocket needs roll, pitch and yaw to get into the right orbit, or to reduce stress along a certain axis, or to orient comms antennas towards the ground. Saturn V did this too.

That specific thing does sound a little urban-legendy but there's no shortage of known cases of precise copying of technical details of some design, especially in early iterations or when the copiers didn't yet fully understand what they were copying.

The aspect of this I find more surprising is that the Soviet space program went so far in emulating the entire idea of a reusable space plane, well after it must have become quite clear just from the US experience that it's very hard, very expensive and likely incapable of meetings its original design goals.

Re: Soviet version of the Space Shuttle

#19

Post by thingie »

pvg wrote: post #6
thingie wrote: post #4

One interesting difference from the American program that had always intrigued me is that Buran was carried horizontally on a heavy launch pad with gear to erect the whole unit on the launch site, moving on pretty much ordinary railway tracks, hauled by off-the-shell diesel locomotives, while the Shuttle has to be moved in vertical position, very carefully and slowly, on a very special vehicle, that cannot be done in…

A lot of the infrastructure for storing and moving the Shuttle is inherited from the Apollo program. Whatever's going on here looks convoluted enough - http://farm1.static.flickr.com/107/315442494_6d3239a0ff.jpg http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2010/2028067672_2ba6479d74.jp... Seems pretty hard to tell what solution is 'obviously superior' unless you're a rocket-moving engineer or somesuch.

Shuttle needs to be assembled and erected (though in the opposite order?) somewhere and somehow as well. (And requires a giant hall to do so.)

But yes, of course, I tell it mostly as a joke to counter the space pen story. I'm sure that there is some reasonable rationale for this solution.

Re: Soviet version of the Space Shuttle

#20

Post by bane »

IgorPartola wrote: post #16
bane wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's likely that the Shuttle design may be lighter as it only has support weight in one direction while the Buran design requires it to have load bearing structures for two orientations.

Wouldn't you want structural integrity in all planes upon landing?

Yeah, but I'm guessing that the stress loads of the entire assembly are quite different than the shuttle by itself.

(again, no facts to back this up, just conjecture)

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