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Soviet Space Shuttle Found In Bahrain?
Posted by
michael
on Fri Sep 24, 2004 09:19 AM
from the grain-of-salt dept.
from the grain-of-salt dept.
An anonymous reader writes "German news source Spiegel are reporting (english babelfish translation) that some TV journalists have found a seemingly abandoned Russian space shuttle in the Persian Gulf. It looks like it could be the atmospheric test demonstrator Buran OK-GLI which was in Sydney, Australia. Pictures here (external) and here (internal). Boy, what I would give to be able to sit in that seat and flip those switches!" Another reader, grm_wnr writes "German tabloid newspaper Bild reports that a russian Buran shuttle has been found in the Bahrain desert. Here is the story (in german, Google translation here). What's funny is that noone knows how it ended up there. At least the fate of one of the four Buran prototypes is now confirmed." There is not much confirmation on this, outside of a few pictures... let the reader beware.
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Grain of Salt (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Grain of Salt (Score:5, Interesting)
(Sorry, only German)
The Location is Secret. The Shuttle is only "parked" there.
A German Museum has bought it and is waiting to ship it to Germany. The Museum has bought many things like this in the past (Tupolew TU-144, a Concord...)
Is this the one that overran the runway way back w (Score:5, Interesting)
Parking (Score:5, Funny)
You ever tried to parallel park one of those things... trust me its easier just to park it in the desert.
Stop press! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Stop press! (Score:5, Informative)
If anyone find themselves in southwestern Germany, and is interested in this sort of thing, I would strongly recommend going to visit this museum. It was quite interesting even to someone like me. Even though I don't find cars interesting and aircraft only mildly interesting, I still enjoyed this museum. Seeing the full-size aircraft in person instead of in pictures is a worthwhile experience. The presence of the Buran shuttle would make it even better.
Buran history (Score:5, Interesting)
I was amazed to learn that Buran flew into space completely by remote control. Kudos to the Russians for this feat.
- Leo
It was stolen (Score:5, Funny)
How'd It Get There? (Score:5, Funny)
The second half of the story (Score:5, Informative)
Ebay (Score:5, Funny)
1 slightly used space shuttle prototype.....
Likely a Structural Test Article (Score:5, Informative)
Our STA, STA-099, was retrofitted after it was clear that retrofitting the test Orbiter Enterprise would be too costly. So, STA-099 become OV-099, Challenger. There might have been much gnashing of teeth to have seen Enterprise destroyed on that cold January day in 1986 for some fanboys than Challenger, I would think--not to belittle that death of a vehicle or its crew would seem any more or less important based on its name.
Everything you want to know about the Buran program in Russian, amongst many other space information, can be found at this popular and comprehensive web site. [astronautix.com]
Buran in Sydney (Score:5, Interesting)
The Buran in Sydney lacked the navigation avionics, leaving a rather large empty space in the deck below the cockpit. The Russians removed that before they exported the shuttle. The guide claimed the avionics were heavily borrowed from Russian ICBMs and had even included targeting data for U.S. sites.
It's sad that Buran failed as a tourist attraction.
Will be shown at the Technik Museum at Sinsheim (Score:5, Informative)
The Technik Museum Sinsheim [museum-sinsheim.de] already has a Concorde, the Tupolev TU144 (soviet counterpart of the Concorde), and a Porsche 959, "The blue Flame" and a lot of others tech stuff.
The shuttle will be kept in good company
oh my god. (Score:5, Funny)
yeah, then you could go watch spongebob in your footie-pajamas, and drink hi-c from your sippie-cup!
actually, that sounds kind of fun.
Manual translation of Spiegel article (Score:5, Informative)
Soviet space shuttle: Curious discovery at the persian gulf
While shooting footage for the formula 1 race in Bahrain, a TV crew from Düsseldorf by chance stumbled over a rumour about a russian space shuttle, said to be located since some time in that region, without anybody taking an interest in it. A little while later, the Germans were standing in front of a relic of the soviet space shuttle program of the eighties: A vehicle strongly resembling the US shuttles. It may be a prototype version of the space shuttle "Buran" ("Snowstorm".
With this shuttle project, at times employing up to 30'000 people, the soviets wanted to catch up with the americans in manned space flight. But the project was not under a good sign. Already at its inception in the late seventies it was clear that the Soviet union actually had no use for a re-usable space craft. "Buran", the name of the sole soviet shuttle ever to make it into space, was a pure prestige project - and an extremely expensive one at that.
November 15 1988, after more than ten years of development, Buran took off for the first and last orbital flight, without crew. This flight ended according to plan after two orbits of the earth. One year later, the iron curtain came down - and with it, the major part of funding for soviet space exploration.
[CAPTION]: TV producer Maier in the cockpit of the shuttle: Relic from the soviet union
While the "Buran" shuttle was able to carry more payload than US shuttles and could be controlled remotely, neither its on-board computer nor its life support system ever worked satisfactory. The space ship was decomissioned, and was destroyed in May 2002, when the ceiling of a hangar in the Baikonur space center crashed. A second shuttle named "Ptitchka" ("Little bird"), which was completed in 1990, was never used: The program was stopped officially in 1993.
Besides the two soviet shuttles that were ready to fly, there were said to be three more, unfinished, shuttles, and a series of test versions. Today, one is being used as a restaurant in Moscow, another was sold by Russia to Sydney as an exhibition piece for the 2000 olympic games. "Ptitchka" is said to be in Baikonur still.
It is not clear which model was found at the persian gulf by the TV crew from Düsseldorf. Nobody knows, how this museum piece ended up there. According to TV producer Chris Maier, this could be the model once located in Sydney. This notion is supported by the fact that the shuttle supposedly performed 25 atmospheric test flights. Various reports claim that the Russians delivered the aerodynamic test plane "Buran OK-GLI" to Australia, which was used to test the automatic landing system of the space shuttles. For this reason, the shuttle was the only test variant equipped with engines.
"We need to get confirmation on which version this is", concedes Maier. However, the shuttle has already attracted a potential buyer: According to Volker Hartmann, a member of the TV crew, German enterpreneur Kai Niedermeier, who is doing business in the gulf states, wants to do a world tour with the space shuttle - and auction parts of its hull on the internet.
Summary of the cockpit dialogue that day (Score:5, Funny)
Slava: Zutroy, what is red light?
Zutroy: Red light is bad.
Slava: Was it last vector?
Zutroy: Last vector, yes. Last vector is bad.
Slava: Light is bad, vector is bad, what is good?
Zutroy: Chance of hit desert is good.
Slava: Pass the Stolchinaya.
Zutroy: Yes, Stochinaya also good.
Re:Funny... (Score:5, Interesting)
It looks like the US shuttle on the outside, but inside it is totally different. Interestingly enough, in many ways it is superior to the US space shuttle - for example if could do everything automated - including the landing.
including the landing. (Score:5, Informative)
Other than that, the shuttle can land automatically, too.
Re:Funny... (Score:5, Interesting)
This is true. The Russians has NASA's 10+ years of experience behind them when they were working on the Buran. As such, they avoided several points which made the shuttle such a difficult craft. A few items:
- The Buran had no launch engines. All lift power was provided by the Energia it was strapped to.
- The Buran had more advanced computers with real-time control abilities instead of the "key in the program" design of the shuttle.
- The Buran stack was lighter due to the single-booster design.
- The complexity lost in the single-booster design meant that turn-around times would have been far faster than the shuttle.
- Future versions of the design would have made the Energia booster able to fly back to Earth and be reused.
All of this did come at a price, however. IIRC, the Russian program was about twice as expensive in R&D as the US program. As for the aerodynamics, my understanding is that the Russians did have stolen shuttle specs as a reference. Even if they didn't, they still had a large collection of photographs from which they could divine the areo-shell design. As a result, the Buran was nearly an exact aerodynamic copy of the space shuttle.
And for anyone who thinks that may have been a coincidence, think again. There was no need for the Russians to have built a large cargo craft. They already had excellent cargo boosters, so they could have built a man rated vehicle for much less. They built the Buran to compete with the shuttle on every point, but did it in such a way as to show that Russian design was "better".
That being said, I'd love to see the Energia program revitalized. With those rockets, we could have cut the costs of ISS construction several fold!
Re:Funny... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Funny... (Score:5, Interesting)
The OP's examples (F-15/MiG-29 and Shuttle/Buran) are pretty poor; they look similar only to one who is not familiar with them.
Re:Funny... (Score:5, Funny)
Just to continue the funny discussions.
The size of the US Space Shuttle was actually determined by the limitations imposed by the Solid Rocket Boosters. --> The size of the SRB's was determined by the fact that the plant which made them was in Utah and there was a Rail Road tunnel in the way to the cape. --> The size of the tunnel was determined by the construction of the Transcontinental Rail Road in the 1860's and by the width of a Standard Gage Train Track. --> The width of a train track owes its history to the width of a standard mine cart or wagon from the old English days. --> The width of the wagon from old English days was determined by the width of the ruts in the old English roads from antiquity. --> The width of the ruts in old English roads was determined by the width of a Roman Chariot which by no coincidence was determined by the width of the two horses that pulled the chariots.
So the Roman Standards for War Chariots determined by the width of two horses rumps was a determining factor in the NASA and Russian Space Shuttles dimensions. The reason the Russion one was larger even by increments was it was intended to be bigger.
Warning to programmers. What you do today may have some considerable unforseen influence on the future. Thy not to limit them too much!
Re:The shape is the same (Score:5, Informative)
The shape is the same, but not too much else.
The American (US and Canada) shuttle had integrated engines. Fuel fed from the big external tank into those engines during lift off. Buran was not designed with those engines. Buran was to use a modified Energia rocket to lift into space. This is a major design difference that does not show in the shots here.
This design by the soviets lowered the cost of developing their shuttle, and would give Buran more cargo space and load capacity. However the soviet design would need new engines for each launch. The American design reuses the engines for several launches.
The Soviets could have copied the general shape of the shuttle in order to implement a known working aerodynamic design. This is not the same thing the first poster is saying. They could have spent money developing a completely new working aerodynamic design, but chose to copy instead of innovate. The USSR wasn't exactly swimming in cash during this period, so I can see why they chose the cheaper route.
Re:How did I get here? (Score:5, Interesting)