Soviet Space Shuttle Found In Bahrain? 401
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.
seriously (Score:2, Informative)
If they did actually abandon it out in the desert (which I find unbelievable, you think they would lock it up in a hanger or something), it's probably been completely gutted for the cool parts anyway.
Did this thing actually get used at all?
Lost? (Score:3, Informative)
Stop press! (Score:5, Informative)
In the mean time (Score:2, Informative)
The second half of the story (Score:5, Informative)
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]
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
Re:Funny... (Score:1, 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.
Re:Funny... (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Lost? (Score:1, Informative)
Check out "the supermagnifying glass" (Score:4, Informative)
Now you can see all those small details Nasa doesnt want you to know about. Geez, this must be the lamest incarnation of digital zoom I ever saw. But then again, Bild is germanies most unreliable newssource anyway so I have to wonder why it was linked to on
including the landing. (Score:5, Informative)
Other than that, the shuttle can land automatically, too.
Re:including the landing. (Score:2, Informative)
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.
Re:Grain of Salt (Score:3, Informative)
Re:What the Russians didn't publicize (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Funny... (Score:2, Informative)
It can't fly the entire mission unmanned like the Buran did.
Re:Funny... (Score:3, Informative)
For example, Gorky Park in Moscow managed to snag one of the test vehicles as an attraction. If you ever go there, you can walk through the shuttle and take a 3D ride.
Re:Funny... (Score:4, Informative)
Wow.
Location of the Buran's (Score:3, Informative)
One is under a pile of rubble [bbc.co.uk]
One has been sold to the Germans.
And one is still missing.
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.
Where'd it come from? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Funny... (Score:3, Informative)
"the Pacific" - Not Europe
"airfield in Russia" - Also not Europe.
I actually knew about the B-29s that were downed, because it led to one of the more interesting aspects of the cold war in terms of the idea of scaling arms. Before the TU-4, there was no way for Russia to get to the US, and Russia was already reeling from the attack of a European superpower.
Regarding the reverse engineering, there was a story that Rolls Royce supplied a Merlin aero engine to China on technology transfer that they copied down to the last bolt, and there's some speculation that the EP-3E forced down in China was heavily catalogued before Lockheed Martin engineers were allowed in to dismantle and crate the plane.
Buran in Bahrain (Score:2, Informative)
http://www.spacetoday.net/Summary/978 [spacetoday.net]
News briefs: June 15-16
Posted: Mon, Jun 17, 2002, 6:27 AM ET (1027 GMT)
A test model of the Buran space shuttle will be featured during a festival this summer in the Persian Gulf nation of Bahrain, RIA Novosti reported this weekend. The Buran will be the centerpiece of an exhibit on Russian achievements in space exploration. The Buran had previously been in Sydney, Australia for an exhibit that eventually closed because of a lack of visitors.
Re:Funny... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Grain of Salt (Score:4, Informative)
It WASN'T remote control (Score:3, Informative)
Re:The shape is the same (Score:4, Informative)
See Buran - In Depth History [astronautix.com] for more info.
Re:Funny... but not true (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Funny... (Score:5, Informative)
The boosters are made in Louisiana, and shipped by barge to Florida. No trains at all.
And the implicit stupidity of putting the SSME's in the Shuttle when there was no provision for engine restart, especially since that great fuel tank was already falling into the ocean. Yeah, the Soviets did it better in that regard.
As to tile technology, well that has matured some, but the fragility of the entire system is keeping NASA from any major overhauls in that regard. Had the Soviets actually continued with the program, they might just have built a flyback booster, aka, what the STS was supposed to be.
Ah, the perils of money...
Re:including the landing. (Score:4, Informative)
The gear is lowered near the end of the flight, just before touchdown, far later than is done on other aircraft. If you have ever flown on a commercial or private plane, you will know that the aircraft slows down and begins to noticeably rumble when the gear goes down, due to the large amount of drag it creates. Minimizing the amount of time the gear is down maximizes the chance that the pilots can correct for any final-approach anomalies.
A gear door opening early might be a problem but not unrecoverable unless it opened far too early during descent, and a gear door that opened too late could cause a partial or total belly landing which could possibly (not definitely; it would depend on the situation) cause the unrecoverable loss of the orbiter. But the crew would probably survive, especially since they train for such ditchings.
Re:Funny... (Score:2, Informative)