Great photos. Does anyone have details why soviets thought a carbon copy of the botched shuttle design was a good idea in the first place? Where the economics of the vehicle not so obvious back then?
Photos from inside the Baikonur Cosmodrome
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Re: Photos from inside the Baikonur Cosmodrome
#42It's just too cool looking not to be computer generated. You know: That complex hyper-realistic look with lots of fancy shaders to show off the latest hardware.
Is it certain that this isn't some brilliant Blair-Witch-esque promo hoax for a "Soviet Space Race" computer game/movie where you have to save the Earth from destruction by resurrecting one of the old Soviet space shuttles?
I don't actually doubt it's real, but I'd hella love to play that game!
Re: Photos from inside the Baikonur Cosmodrome
#43For the geeks... Buran had prolog code in its brain and could land on its own...in the 80s!!!
This is the CIA document that noted that (May 1990): http://web.archive.org/web/20120611225718/http://www.foia.ci...
Notably, it also stated:
The telecommunications deficiency is a particularly serious
problem for the Soviets. The USSR lacks the type of extensive,
serviceable, open-access, civil telecommunications infrastructure
has proved to be an essential ingredient in the U.S. software
industry's capability to support the needs of software uses an
all sectors of the U.S. economy technologies critical to the U.S.
Industries lead include wide area networks such as INTERNET,
TYMNET and TELENET accessible to most software developers in the
United States; equally important are the local area networks used
to connect software development teams distributed in different
locations within large buildings or among several facilities
within a large industrial park.
TYMNET by the way is noted here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tymnet
Re: Photos from inside the Baikonur Cosmodrome
#44I think being able to walk away from a project like this is actually quite commendable, in a way. Not that it's always the right call, but to be able to avoid the 'sunk cost fallacy'[1] on this scale is something that large governments/companies seem rarely capable of. That said, in this case, maybe they just didn't have a choice and ran out of money... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escalation_of_commitment
I agreed. I have thought the same thing about the Superconducting Super Collider. Imagine the thoughts on the people that had to walk away from these projects.
Anecdotes & analysis of the psychology of "just walk away" under such scale & conditions would be fascinating.
Prior company I worked for was next to another business that "just walked away": seems everyone at the vaccine supply company literally just up & left one day all at once, leaving everything including lunches behind.
Re: Photos from inside the Baikonur Cosmodrome
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
You can 'find' things by research too. If the photographer set out to find and photo the Buran, and started by googling, then that's still 'finding'?
Re: Photos from inside the Baikonur Cosmodrome
#46Makes you wonder if Russia's contributions to science back in the Soviet days were bigger than today under Putin's rule...
They need to get rid of the extortion, fraud, and payoffs. They need to get rid of Putin! As a kid, my father was harassing a Russian neighbor. He said if your country was so great--why do you your comrades want to buy Levi jeans, and they were getting $100 at the time used. He looked at my father, and said, 'Russian has its problems, but if went there today you couldn't find a homeless person.' My father didn't have anything left to say. (Actually, back then they were ignorantly called bums.)
Re: Photos from inside the Baikonur Cosmodrome
#47Great photos. Does anyone have details why soviets thought a carbon copy of the botched shuttle design was a good idea in the first place? Where the economics of the vehicle not so obvious back then?
According to Wikipedia, because they were concerned about military applications of the space shuttle and wanted to match the US's capabilities. Large payload capacity for launching orbital anti-missile lasers or diving to drop bombs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buran_programme#Programme_deve...
Re: Photos from inside the Baikonur Cosmodrome
#48I thought cancelled web projects were hard to deal with mentally, this puts a whole new perspective on no go for launch.
Re: Photos from inside the Baikonur Cosmodrome
#49It's just too cool looking not to be computer generated. You know: That complex hyper-realistic look with lots of fancy shaders to show off the latest hardware. Is it certain that this isn't some brilliant Blair-Witch-esque promo hoax for a "Soviet Space Race" computer game/movie where you have to save the Earth from destruction by resurrecting one of the old Soviet space shuttles? I don't actually doubt it's real, b…
Def. Not. Seen the shuttle myself, one of them sits in a german Museum. Next to a Concorde and a Tu.144.
Re: Photos from inside the Baikonur Cosmodrome
#50Great photos. Does anyone have details why soviets thought a carbon copy of the botched shuttle design was a good idea in the first place? Where the economics of the vehicle not so obvious back then?
What do you mean botched shuttle design? They probably started copying its design from very early on.