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Photos from inside the Baikonur Cosmodrome
31–40 of 124 posts
Re: Photos from inside the Baikonur Cosmodrome
#32On reading up, "finding" isn't quite accurate, as the locations of these two shuttles were perfectly well known. They're OK-1K2 and OK-4M on Wikipedia's list below, located in MZK building 80, area 112a, Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buran_programme#Buran-class_sp... However, obviously sneaking in to take pictures is not an everyday occurrence, it's still a Russian military base and p…
It's perfectly possible the photographer had no idea of what he would find. Not everyone knows where the Soviet shuttles are. It's still a find, if not a discovery. No pun intended.
from the writeup it seems to me like the photographer had researched and knew what to expect. He never claims to have discovered anything.
Re: Photos from inside the Baikonur Cosmodrome
#33How abandoned is the hangar? There are some other people in the photos, and no matter how isolated the area is, surely the nearest town or two has wandered into the giant complex up the road a few times. Still, it's amazing that this is the sort of thing people can just potentially wander into. Really makes you want to go explore the world.
So, I just went back and played "Where's Waldo." Either I lost or you are mistaken. the only photos with people in them that I find are the 2 old photos from when the program was still active and the last one with the person who I assume is the photog.
Re: Photos from inside the Baikonur Cosmodrome
#34Here's a google translated version
https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=auto&tl=en&u...
Re: Photos from inside the Baikonur Cosmodrome
#35Re: Photos from inside the Baikonur Cosmodrome
#36Makes you wonder if Russia's contributions to science back in the Soviet days were bigger than today under Putin's rule...
Re: Photos from inside the Baikonur Cosmodrome
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
Probably because scrapping it would've cost a small fortune and what's left over just wouldn't be worth it.
In the UK you only have to leave something on the pavement and scrap metal hunters will come by and take it ... seems like there has to be a net gain to scrapping this much metal - if it were a ship then salvage companies would have had it already. I'm surprised that they didn't post a guard there with clean up duty to at least keep it all from rusting in to the ground. Wonder how much it would be to buy and whether…
In many rust belt cities, any building that sits unprotected will be vandalized and stripped of any valuable metals. This is on a Russian military base so it's safe.
Scrap collectors on the street don't charge for their time. It would cost the Russian government more in wages and such to scrap the site than they would ever get back out of it.
Re: Photos from inside the Baikonur Cosmodrome
#38What awesome machinery! There's something inexplicable beautiful about old decommissioned equipment.
Re: Photos from inside the Baikonur Cosmodrome
#39For the geeks... Buran had prolog code in its brain and could land on its own...in the 80s!!!
"It was the first space shuttle to perform an unmanned flight, including landing in fully automatic mode."
"[...] despite a lateral wind speed of 61.2 kilometres per hour (38.0 mph), it landed only 3 metres (9.8 ft) laterally and 10 metres (33 ft) longitudinally from the target mark."
That sounds pretty impressive.
Re: Photos from inside the Baikonur Cosmodrome
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's perfectly possible the photographer had no idea of what he would find. Not everyone knows where the Soviet shuttles are. It's still a find, if not a discovery. No pun intended.
from the writeup it seems to me like the photographer had researched and knew what to expect. He never claims to have discovered anything.
Well. Then the title is incorrect.