![]() ![]() In addition, the Soviets saw the potential for such a space plane, and they began their own program and soon started testing an unpiloted scale model of the Buran, called the Bor. This alarmed Soviet Premier Leonid Brezhnev so much that he ordered that a set of alternative measures be developed to secure the country from such an attack. Sikharulidze and Dmitry Okhotsimsky had written a report that warned how the space shuttle could make a “dive” in its orbit as it passed over Moscow, and release a nuclear weapon. ![]() Moscow was even concerned that the space shuttle could be employed as a type of orbital bomber. space shuttle launches that the Soviet Ministry of Defense took a renewed interest in the project, due to the fact that it could deliver larger and more complex spy satellites into orbit and even allow crews to conduct maintenance and repairs. Soviet interest in such a vehicle was revived in the 1950s, but for the next 30 years, it was still a secondary consideration. The concept of a reusable spacecraft had actually existed before the first rockets launched humans into space, and was first considered by future Soviet space program manager Sergei Korolev in the 1930s. It has been widely described as the Soviet space shuttle. The Buran (Russian for “Blizzard”) was produced as part of the name of the program as well as the orbiter/spacecraft. However, the Soviet space agency, which faced several challenges, sought to develop its own reusable spaceplane. Tragically, two shuttles – STS-51-L Challenger and STS-107 Columbia – were lost in accidents. It successfully flew 135 missions and carried 355 astronauts from 16 countries into orbit. After the end of the Apollo program, the United States refocused on the Space Shuttle, its fourth human spaceflight program – which accomplished routine transportation for Earth-to-orbit crew and cargo from 1981 to 2011. Though the so-called “space race” culminated with the July 1969 Apollo 11 moon landing, the epic rivalry between the two nations continued into the 1970s and 1980s. That triggered a 12-year contest – one that was spirited, high-risk, and costly – between the Soviets and the Americans to gain dominance in the new frontier of space. Hopefully, his photos will inspire the Russian government to put these shuttles in a museum where they belong.Why the Buran Is Only a Footnote in Space History: During the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union fortunately never engaged in direct combat – but there were moments when things could have gone quite differently.Ī key event occurred on October 4, 1957, when the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the first artificial satellite, into orbit. Mirebs’ photos showed this forgotten Russian space program derelict and frozen in time. Unfortunately, this shuttle was destroyed in a hangar collapse in 2002. The only operational Russian space shuttle from Buran, Orbiter 1K1, completed one unmanned orbital flight before it was grounded. The Buran prototype shuttles found in the abandoned hangar by Mirebs, however, are from an earlier era – they are the last remnants of a space program that began in 1974 and was finally shuttered in 1993. Not only the Baikonur station is the world’s first and largest space exploration and shuttle launch facility, but it is also from here that the first artificial satellite and the first human spaceflight of the famous Yuri Gagarin were launched. The abandoned hangar is located at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, which is still in operation today (with the close of NASA’s shuttle program, Russian Soyuz shuttles are the only way for astronauts to reach the International Space Station). ![]()
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