81–90 of 124 posts
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?
According to the book "Energiya-Buran, the Soviet Space Shuttle" by Bart Hendrickx and Bert Vis, they correctly noted that the stated reasons for the US space shuttle did not make any sense, so they assumed there must be some secret rational reason for building it: > As TsNIIMash [Central Scientific Research Institute of Machine Building] director Yuriy Mozzhorin later said: "[The Space Shuttle] was introduced as a n…
History spirals. This is an objective process, repeated over and over again. You can regret for the lost time and to mourn about the past greatness, but the facts remain above this - Russia is rapidly losing its status as a leading space power. For more than twenty years, the country does not produce anything new in principle, continuing to exploit the legacy of the Soviet Union. Only lead the modernization of the ol…
If yes, would you share how you got inside? What arrangements were needed? I am curious!
Also, thank you for these pictures. Despite what happens politically (projects die, or supported to success), it is inspiring to think about how many people worked on this project. All that effort... as it is now. :(
It is only fair their work gets viewed and known!
PS: I assume English is not your first language. Hopefully my sentences were understandable. Your English is still much better than my (zero) Russian (assuming). :)
PPS: Before someone mentions it, yes, I am aware there were charges thrown around of technology copying in the Buran program. Whether or not those have any truth, they obviously weren't handed "shuttle in a box" plans. Imho, it's still nice to appreciate all the work that was put into something that never flew into space.*
Edit: I stand corrected. As others mentioned, it launched and performed two orbits without a crew before successfully returning in November of '88. Impressive! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buran_programme#Orbital_flight...
Its interesting to see how these shuttles mirror the US ones on the outside due to Soviet spies getting pictures and plans but the interior, especially the cockpit, is all Russian, sparse and uncomfortable. I guess they didn't get intel on that.
Or perhaps because the interiors don't matter much, as long as they do what's required by the mission. The exterior, however, has aerodynamics constraints. Being a shuttle, you also have to account for reentry effects. Presumably the US had way better computing technology and simulation capabilities that were very expensive.
I'd heard this before, but the actual genesis of Lockheed's Have Blue/F-117 was this: 1) Petr Ufimtsev in the 1960s develops the equations for calculating the radar energy reflected by a given geometric configuration 2) USAF notices and translates this into English 3) Denys Overholser and Bill Schroeder at Lockheed find, read, and implement it in software (which the Russians didn't have the computational power to do) 4) Lockheed is looking for a new Skunkworks project (this is post-SR 71, and Kelly Johnson was transitioning out of Skunkworks after handing things over to Ben Rich) and decides to bet on stealth ("What?! That'll never work! It's crazy!") 5) {... many, many, MANY person-hours later} 6) F-117
Side note: the reason the F-117 has geometric surfaces is that when it was being designed in the 60s and 70s there wasn't enough available computational power to calculate more complex shapes (e.g. F-22).
Fun fact: Buran was the first fully automated space shuttle. It did a complete flight cycle without human intervention. I believe our space shuttle could that that too eventually but not at the time. Even funner fact: There is a remnant of software that powered that shuttle still around. In the form of a visual programming language DRAKON ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DRAKON )
The STS was purposely designed not to do that due to political reasons, pilots didnt want to feel like they were passangers, emergency restrictions, etc. Eventually those restrictions were lifted and was fully autonomous at a certain point, I don't remember which models have the full autonomy suite, but the capabilities varied as these things were built out. Considering the Buran has never put a person into space, it…
It looks like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-3xx has details on this cable, referred to as the Remote Control Orbiter (RCO) in-flight maintenance (IFM) cable.
I 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
Quoting from Wikipedia, sorry:
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I think being able to walk away from a project like this is actually quite commendable, in a way. Oddly enough, this is much easier to do without a democracy. It was not what happened there (it was the Soviet Union's collapse that did it) but the reasoning stands.
Well they did keep their Soyuz and other space programs. I think even the wasteful Socialist bureaucrats realized this is not a project worth pursuing.
That's a very narrow niche for a very expensive spaceplane.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, it does not. It is clear that the Soviet Union, for all its flaws, was one of the foremost nations (or collection of such) when it comes to scientific endeavours. Where they failed was in the translation of scientific data to 'products', but that is another story. Modern Russia still has its share of eminent scientists, but they lack the s(t)olid backing of a nation which felt like it had something to prove.
Lysenkoism was certainly a highlight of the Soviet sciences. Mendelian inheritance was considered a capitalist fabrication.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The STS was purposely designed not to do that due to political reasons, pilots didnt want to feel like they were passangers, emergency restrictions, etc. Eventually those restrictions were lifted and was fully autonomous at a certain point, I don't remember which models have the full autonomy suite, but the capabilities varied as these things were built out. Considering the Buran has never put a person into space, it…
STS was never fully automated, they would have needed to install a temporary cable that allowed the landing gear to be automatically deployed. It looks like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-3xx has details on this cable, referred to as the Remote Control Orbiter (RCO) in-flight maintenance (IFM) cable.
In scenarios where the shuttle was damaged in space, the cable would be deployed and NASA could fly it home safely via remote while the crew stayed in the ISS. In normal scenarios the landing was done by pilot or commander. So yes, NASA had these capabilities and for a long time, it just chose not to use them outside of certain scenarios. Considering the Buran never carried a person to space, its unknown whether they would have gone the NASA approach or gone full automation once in production. The nice thing of having a system that never worked is that you can fantasize about how its better than everything because it never had to get out there and actually launch human beings safely.
Frankly, its pretty dishonest to say the Buran had automation that the Shuttle lacked. That's like saying my computer can't play 3D video games because all I ever do is 2D. I just choose not to.