On November 15, 1988, the world learned that the Soviet Union also had their own space shuttle. It had been secretly under development for well over a decade and it had cost the Soviets billions to build it. Several of the spacecraft were in various stages of construction. But the Soviet shuttle, named the Buran, would only ever launch once. Its development had largely been driven by the need to respond to the perceived military potential of the NASA Space Shuttle.
The US began the design process before the Soviets. Lots of aerospace innovation at that time, so the Soviets' design was better on the books because they had more time.
Also, the Buran flew once. The US fleet flew 135 missions. Two missions were failures.
Julian Clark
I wish the soviets didnt die, imagine america and the USSR doing space exploration together
>imagine america and the USSR doing space exploration together You mean like building a 500 ton space station complex that regularly sees cargo and crew from around the world?
Jaxson Anderson
go beyond that, exploring planets, mining asteroids ETC ETC
Joseph Ross
Buran definitely had some advantages even if it never lived up to the promise. First, it could fly completely autonomous. Second, the main engines were on the Energia core rocket, not the orbiter. Both the core Energia and the strap-on Zenit boosters functioned as their own rockets. Zenit is still flying today. Buran failed because the Soviets didn't need it and these kind of spaceplanes were a hack looking for a market.
Aiden Myers
>blatant copy yes >almost kind-of flew yes >better lol no
John Sanders
The days of that kind of nation-state exploration are waning. The inner solar system is going to be developed by private companies.
Soviets built a lot of bad replicas of Western tech. Like the TU-144 replica of the Concorde built with shitty Soviet metal and engineering flaws. It cracked in half and crashed into the ground.
WOW! The Soviets did all of the easy things first? Neat.
Reminder that Soviets failed at everything hard they ever tried while NASA succeeded almost every time at doing impossible things that no one else has ever done.
all these faggits acting like they know what their talking about in this thread. show flag jew no one went to the moon. >inb4 >we went but the footage was faked >it would be easier to go then to fake it >the soviets would have said something if we didnt go
Jaxson Morales
I too like to omit facts that would discredit my claims. Makes life so much easier.
Lucas Myers
They took every mistake we made with the shuttle program and fixed it. Then the USSR collapsed, and so did the Buran program. It had all sorts of potential, so it's sad that it got wasted.
Aaron Brown
They do. It's just not public info.
Blake Campbell
my conspiracy theory is that the soviets and america went to the moon, mars and venus together and put their respective flags there, but only apollo 11 was allowed to be shown to the peasants
Charles Cox
NASA has no mandate for colonization or mining. STS was amazing.
Jason Kelly
According to your stupid theory why would the Soviet agree to a plan that makes them look weak and incompetent?
Justin Gray
it would be easier to go than to fake it, plus the soviets would have said something if we didn't go
Thought they just literally used our plans because they were publicly available in the library of Congress. Didn't they also never fly theirs in the air?
