RIP Buran and Energia, the Soviets and the world, didn’t deserve you
AgreeableEmploy1884 on
Energia had alot of potential, sucks it only flew twice.
NASATVENGINNER on
Buran flew once on an orbital flight.
TWNW on
Energia, developed to be used as independent LV, was much better and useful result of the program than Buran.
We would get actual reusable first (Block A) stage in the 1980’s.
While orbiter itself was an expensive military toy (caused a lot of negative response from the soviet society), suffering from all problems of the *big scale* spaceplanes as concept. Yet, afterflight refurbishing was minimized compared to Space Shuttle, it’s still full of dead mass of avionics, wings and expensive, complex thermal protection. There was a lot of arguments against spaceplane as primary element of the soviet manned space program plans for the 90’s.
The launch vehicle, on other hand, had potential to kick-start reusability 35 years ago. Retrorocket x parachute was a bit of heavy and primitive solution. Yet, as engineering task, even back then, it forced further development of stage return systems. Resulted in Baikal program, as next step.
[deleted] on
[removed]
JayR_97 on
The space shuttle version of “You can copy my homework, but just change it a bit so it doesn’t look obvious”
ocherthulu on
Was the shuttle design plagiarized?
Hispanoamericano2000 on
Even today, I still find it incredible and somewhat ironic that the Soviets (in a way) stole or usurped the concept of the American STS/Space Shuttle and ended up creating/producing a machine or vehicle that seems to have been better than the American Space Shuttle (although fate did not allow the Buran to demonstrate its full potential).
9 Comments
RIP Buran and Energia, the Soviets and the world, didn’t deserve you
Energia had alot of potential, sucks it only flew twice.
Buran flew once on an orbital flight.
Energia, developed to be used as independent LV, was much better and useful result of the program than Buran.
We would get actual reusable first (Block A) stage in the 1980’s.
While orbiter itself was an expensive military toy (caused a lot of negative response from the soviet society), suffering from all problems of the *big scale* spaceplanes as concept. Yet, afterflight refurbishing was minimized compared to Space Shuttle, it’s still full of dead mass of avionics, wings and expensive, complex thermal protection. There was a lot of arguments against spaceplane as primary element of the soviet manned space program plans for the 90’s.
The launch vehicle, on other hand, had potential to kick-start reusability 35 years ago. Retrorocket x parachute was a bit of heavy and primitive solution. Yet, as engineering task, even back then, it forced further development of stage return systems. Resulted in Baikal program, as next step.
[removed]
The space shuttle version of “You can copy my homework, but just change it a bit so it doesn’t look obvious”
Was the shuttle design plagiarized?
Even today, I still find it incredible and somewhat ironic that the Soviets (in a way) stole or usurped the concept of the American STS/Space Shuttle and ended up creating/producing a machine or vehicle that seems to have been better than the American Space Shuttle (although fate did not allow the Buran to demonstrate its full potential).
What a missed opportunity.