The Baikonur Cosmodrome

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The Baikonur Cosmodrome is one of the and largest space launch facility, and one of the first ones in the world. It is situated in the desert steppes of Kazakhstan. The cosmodrome was built in the 50-ies in one of the most distant areas of the Soviet country, and now measures 90 kilometres east-west by 85 kilometres north-south. Sputnik 1, the Earth’s first artificial satellite lifted off the Baikonur. It goes without saying that most photos shot there were not for public use, still some workers managed to have a pic of it for their private collection. Now we are going to show you some of images made therе before the collapse of the USSR.





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Photo credits - all photos

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    3:23 pm


    34 Responses to “The Baikonur Cosmodrome”

    1. pimp says:

      Would someone like to see my rocket, it is very big?

    2. Lord Cunt says:

      I’m nearly sure this was posted before, about a year or two ago.

    3. Govno says:

      Drunk Russians sell their rockets for vodka.

    4. Heatmiser says:

      The Soviet space shuttle Buran is shown parked atop an Antonov-225. I believe there were only 1 or 2 AN-225s ever built. In 1989 or 1990 it was in Hartford Connecticut near where I live as a part of the AmeriCare program. They had a viewing of the aircraft and I got to go on board. We never get to see Russian aircraft so it was pretty cool.

    5. Frank says:

      Russia has done many things wrong but you gotta admit their space program is pretty kick ass.

      I loved these pics, good stuff.

    6. SSSR says:

      If 1 rocket fails out of the 6 it will return and crash into the earth.

      • Kirov says:

        That is true,9 out of 10 launches end in failure because Russia uses 6 seperate rockets instead of just 1!
        American rockets were much better!When will my country get it right!!

        • Fred says:

          I think you are joking. If 1 rocket out of 1 fails, it will crash and burn anyway. US uses the same booster configuration on their rockets. Russian rockets use Liquid fuel which is safer than solid rockets like those used on the shuttle. The shuttle design has proven to be a risky launch system and the program may end soon. Soyuz is still the safest human launch system.

          It’s too bad the cluster design of the N1 didn’t work, but even those unused engines have been saved and might be used on American rockets in future.

          First satellite, first man & woman in space, first robotic spacecraft beyond Earth orbit, first space station, longest human spaceflight. Not bad.

    7. piotro says:

      hey i really like yuor site is very cool but this time i write because a doubt is there any way you can help me find the site of the magazine “ПАССАЖ” i think its passage in english i think its a magazine about fashion i think like “vogue” in america in america or the fashion magazine paradise my problem is that i dont have a clue of the russian lenguage haha lol so i cant find it in the web i will apreciate it

    8. Zack says:

      Is that an American flag on the Proton in the 4th picture from the top?

    9. 0235 says:

      that was the amazing thing, and still is, about the syuz series rocket, unlike american ones, the soyuz can be transported horizontaly!

    10. Kirov says:

      I always wondered, we send people to space but can not build a decent car or a vacuum cleaner. Also, we can not feed our people. Something must be wrong.

      • Eye opener says:

        Are you live in cave?open your eyes wide and see around you.i think you are psycho.take some money and go to your nearest supermarket and buy what you want.by the way are you in prison?don`t plan but act like living creature.cave guy! ! !

        • Kirov says:

          Mate, that guy is a retard. He is impersonating me because I debunked his russophobic trash in a debate. He is a sad, angry person :(.

        • Kirov says:

          My impostor again. Ignore the troll. No brain, no manners, no knowledge. I meant to say that Russia is importing almost everything it needs to feed its people, instead of investing in agriculture and supporting it. Russians nowadays do not want to get their hands dirty, so go for easy money and office job. No farmers. And supermarket, have you seen prices ? Same level as western-europe, i was in Berlin some time ago and saw prices were even LOWER there. And in Russia salaries are LOW, good salary is 1000 dollars p/month, average salary is 500 dollars. Pension are very very low, like 150-200 dollars p/month. Happy shopping : piece of broccoli, 5 euro’s, a nectarine, 1 euro each, avocado, 2 euro’s, wine idiotic prices for cheap french or chilean wine, like 20 euro’s for bottle that costs 3 euro’s in Berlin. {russian prices also in euro’s to make easy understandable for foreigners] All because of idiotic import taxes and bribes for customs. CORRUPTION!!! High import taxes to “protect” internal market, at same time not supporting internal market and make doing business very very difficult.

    11. Vladimir79 says:

      These Amerikan rocket comments are funny when it is NASA who is paying us to launch their astronauts to the ISS.

    12. Takken says:

      EnglishRussia youtube channel xD
      youtube.com/user/EnglishRussia

    13. Mizz...(A) says:

      Very interesting.
      (Sorry for my english… byt i try to learn…)

      In fact as i knew, i think Proton (shown on the first picture) vas a later concept than R1 (shown on the third picture) R1 (originaly developed as a long distance intercontinental ballistic misslie concept, but it was as i knew not actualy used in direct war, but served very well in to our days in many various science project, for example the first man in space, early sattelite projects, etc.) Proton was later developed as a hevier project that make it possible to take much more payloads into space.

      Actually that concept with small sized (in fact they are deffinitly not so small compared to the size of a human standing beside…) liquid fuel engines are more effective than a concept with a big single fast(solid) fuel engine.

      The only reason that NASA still use their “gunpowder boosters” was an early economic compromise in the beginning of the space shuttle project, originaly actually even NASA planned to use the much stronger and much safer (but also much more expensive…)liquid fuel engine concept for the space shuttles even in the boosters.

      • Mizz, don’t worry. Your English is better than my Russian. I noticed you’re a Russian native speaker because of some misspellings particularly found among in people from your country.

        Try use a browser (i.e. Firefox) that has spelling check. I’m a native Portuguese speaker (Brazilian variant) and а spelling checker helps a lot. :-)

        Keep it up, всего доброго!

    14. nw99 says:

      Isn’t pic. 11 a Tu-16 badger?

      Dang that’s a huge plane.

    15. guy23 says:

      very informative pics.

    16. Mizz...(A) says:

      nw99, Yes, (i hawe only a old version of the aircraft identifying book used by the Swedish army as my referense but) it must be a Tu 16 shovn on picture 11.

      Some interesting fact about it:

      (guess that a fot is about 0.35 meter)

      Lenght: 34,8 meter
      Spanwidth: 32,9 meter
      Weight (empty) 37ton
      Maximum starting weight: 76 ton
      Crew, 7

      Engines: 2x(what´s the namn, singlestream?) without ebk. (Mikulin AM-3) “x9600 kp/94,1 Kn

      Maximum speed, M0,9

    17. Mizz... (A) says:

      Sorry folks i hawe to correct my slef about that third picture, the correct name of the spacecraft (the smaller sized rocket shown here) model is R7

    18. Mizz... (A) says:

      Sorry folks but i had to correct my self, the spacecraft shown in the third picture i was talking about is actualy named R7

    19. Hey, can I bum a ride to the ISS?

      My shuttle is in the shop.

      Seriously, the Soviet space program was always very good and much better than the US one after Nixon gutted NASA, ‘promoting’ Von Braun to a political post with no authority, canceling the moon program, the Mars program, the solar satellite power program and even the Saturn V, leaving the US space station to crash to Earth. In it’s place with got a junky shuttle 10 years late that could only carry 10% of what the Saturn V could and couldn’t even reach high orbit, let alone the moon. Nixon was a traitor not only to the US but to the entire human civilization.

      The old Soviet N1 from 1969 could lift almost 3x as much as the brand new Ares I rocket NASA is working on now and the Soviet Energia from the 80s could lift 4x as much.

      Nixon also promoted scumbags like Cheney & Rumsfeld into the highest circles of power and authorized firebombing and murder of civilians in Viet-Nam. Nixon also cheated in the election. Does any of this sound familiar?

    20. Spanny says:

      The only reason that NASA still use their “gunpowder boosters” was an early economic compromise in the beginning of the space shuttle project, originaly actually even NASA planned to use the much stronger and much safer (but also much more expensive…)liquid fuel engine concept for the space shuttles even in the boosters.

    21. Seriously, the Soviet space program was always very good and much better than the US one after Nixon gutted NASA, ‘promoting’ Von Braun to a political post with no authority, canceling the moon program, the Mars program, the solar satellite power program and even the Saturn V, leaving the US space station to crash to Earth

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