Here are photos of a technological layout of the orbital aircraft OK-MT in the assembly and refueling building in Baikonur.
A cartridge with light filters.
The layout.
And this picture shows how Germans treat the matter.
Location:Baikonur
via spaceLin, public.fotki
What a terrible waste.
Waste of what? Why decorating an unfinished Buran like germans did? Spending millions just to take to a museum?
Russians museums are full of space programm stuff.
If its under re-construction how is it a waste ? Since the states no longer have one….or plans to build another….why shouldn’t t be re-constructed. We need to keep the international space station open !
An interesting attempt at having a shuttle program
This was an engineering model, it was used to verify the design, e.g. make sure everything fits. The second model (at the back of the hangar, visible only in the fifth photo) was probably the OK-M static test model. They had no purpose once the first orbiter was built.
russian way to deal with things…”remind me when im sober…”
german way… DO IT!!! NOW!! SCHNELL
@Nebukadnezar is right and the sooner Russians realize this the better.
Yes, like any of you would know the first thing about how Russians do things.
What do you know about russia? Nothing?
Lovely ships, hope they get the treatment they deserve!
If this is the one that suffered the building collapse, that it’s nice to see it being rehabbed. –Besides, NASA might be in the market for a slightly used Space Shuttle at some point.
Let’s hope so,
what is this “Buran” being prepared for? a Museum? Is this a real Buran or a mock up?
It is unfortunate that the Buran program never had the opportunity to reach operational status.
I don’t think either of the shuttles visible are actual Buran production models. According to various reports, the second (unfinished) production model is at Baikonur, as are at least two full size mock-ups that were built for testing. It’s likely those are the two mock-ups.
As noted in the previous thread, the one shown at the recent airshow near Moscow was the third (unfinished) production version. That was the one that was actually planned to be used for manned missions, as #1 and #2 were both only planned to be used for unmanned testing, at least initially. The first manned flight would have been with production model #3.
Perhaps they are OK-ML1 and OK-ML2. First was made for heat and mechanical test, and had an interface to fit on Energia. Second was made for create “user manual”, test crew ‘check-in’ and ‘check out’, proper closing without any leak, and for mainteance exercises.
One other chance one of them is OK-1.02, nearly finished shuttle, called Ptyicska (Little Bird) (formerly Burja, Storm). Some electronic component was missed only, near 100% completed. First flight planned to 1993.
That was a great information. Thanks for the taking the efforts to put in all these in your post.
Such a shame – no shuttles in the east or the west now!
The american shuttles were metal fatigued they were falling apart
It s very pitty. I critisize Russia because I love Russia. It s amazing. Everybody believes capitalism is better than communism for development including Russians. But how can they expalins such shames? Now modern Russia makes trade with world, sales billion dollars oil and gas. Why is it so despite? Why can not it do anything Soviet Union succeed? Did capitalism make a trap to Russia to avoid it to be rival? Or somebody sales Mother Russia to the west? The poor situation Russia is in now suffers me even as not a Russian.
“Everybody believes capitalism is better than communism”
I don’t: They are like left boot and right boot: Different but not so different you’d like to believe.
In capitalism we have very few megacorporations who own the government (very obvious in US and EU, at least) and in communism we have Central Committee. is there real difference except in capitalism those corporations are driven by greed and in communism … I don’t know.
Greed is a good motivator but where does it lead as greed always bypassess rational thought? As we can see: ‘Financial crisis’ on-going in US and EU is a intended product of these corporate rulers: handy way to transfer wealth from everyone else to the ultrarich. You may call those ‘bailouts’ but ‘theft’ is the correct term.
Nice people, eh?
These are old pictures from 2005, that originate on a private American NASA space forum. This story is not new, but brought back again as point of interest.
It is often said that the division between West and East does not go along Finnish eastern border, but somewhere in middle of the Finland. At least here in North.
Of course many won’t admit this but to the objective observer the similarities are very clear, so “any of us” does know how russians do things.
I can say quite safely that they use different approach to problems Germans would and definitely totally different than anyone in US would.
Here ‘different’ means just that, not ‘better’ nor ‘worse’.
“Russians museums are full of space programm stuff.”
Half-truth: Not a single Buran and it’s not just ‘stuff’ like you imply.
“An interesting attempt at having a shuttle program”
“Attempt”? Interesting choice of words as it was ready to be used, but political decisision stopped whole program. Just like in US, just a bit earlier and the reason was the same: Too expensive to maintain and use compared to simpler rockets.
Just the opposite of what was the original goal of using one craft several times: Basically a failure. Those happen but it’s important to remember those and why they failed in order not to do same errors again.
That reason alone is enough to put Buran on display.
There’s a REAL spacecraft behind that OK-MT on the fifth foto. And on the 46th.
Historic relics of the space race.
Now, no one has a working Shuttle. What a shame.