
Space Shuttle vs. Buran - neverminder
http://www.buran.su/buranvssts-comparison.php
======
huhtenberg
The principal functional difference between the Shuttles and Buran is buried
in the last paragraph:

    
    
      The main advantage of Buran over STS is that
      it was made from start to be fully automated. 
    

The entire test flight from launch to the landing was done _completely_
autonomously. The most impressive part of it though was the landing when Buran
aborted first landing run that happened to be into a strong crosswind and
retried with a different runway, ultimately landing just few meters off the
target point.

PS. Now reading the linked article, it appears that all its software goodness
fit into less than 4 Megs. I'd totally read the memoirs of whoever was behind
that firmware masterpiece.

~~~
kunai
Jesus Christ, 4MB? Did they write the whole thing in machine code?

~~~
drglitch
Back in the day, not everything needed jquery and bootstrap deps to be
considered "modern" ;)

Jokes aside, russian space program had some AMAZING developers working in some
very low-level languages with unbelievable efficiency. I had the pleasure of
working with some of them many years later on enterprise software at large
banks.

NASA has written some amazing software as well. Start here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8063192](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8063192)

~~~
Camillo
You may joke, but Node.js is still going strong after six years, while Buran
never went past test flights. Imagine how much farther Buran could have gotten
if they had the ability to share small, focused, reusable modules with the
community. Imagine how much more reliable their systems could have been, if
they had been able to reason about them at a higher level of abstraction,
without getting bogged down into the low-level complexity of left-pad!

~~~
ethbro
I get your meaning, but additional abstraction layers are equally dangerous
because they obsfucate underlying constraints and result in incorrect
reasoning about a system.

There's a reason RTOSs don't have very tall software stacks with multiple
layers and virtual machines between them and the hardware.

When your garbage collector invoking at the wrong millisecond 0.01% of the
time means everyone on the craft is incinerated in the atmosphere... that's a
different level of reliability requirement.

~~~
paulddraper
You missed the sarcasm.

------
Animats
Buran was a neat system. Although it looks like a copy of the US shuttle, it
wasn't. Buran was a payload, with no engines.

Because Buran was designed after the Shuttle, the designers had the benefit of
knowing US mistakes. Buran's thermal protection is better. The Space Shuttle
tile system was a huge headache; not only did it cause one crash, even
successful flights required excessive maintenance of the tiles. The US tile
system could not handle rain; Buran could.

The US shuttle had autoland.[1] The astronauts didn't want to use it. Post-
Columbia, the shuttles did get full unmanned landing capability, so that, in
some emergencies, a shuttle could be returned from the ISS with nobody on
board. This was never used.

[1] [http://llis.nasa.gov/lesson/194](http://llis.nasa.gov/lesson/194)

------
mixmastamyk
Interesting, I was just reading up on the space shuttle design process, and
how the shuttle design was hurt by politics and scope creep. Apparently the
project was in jeopardy at some point and needed buy-in from the Air Force. So
they made a few changes, such as making it much bigger, and the tank
disposable for potential military applications.

Well, turns out the shuttle was never used by the military. But the legacy of
those decisions enabled but ultimately doomed the shuttle. It did not meet
it's economic goals and was less safe because of them. Is that a correct
reading of what happened?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_design_process](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_design_process)

[http://www.airliners.net/aviation-
forums/military/read.main/...](http://www.airliners.net/aviation-
forums/military/read.main/144958/)

This is where the Buran comes in, they largely copied the shuttle, but did
they have the foresight to improve the poor parts of the design?

~~~
creshal
> This is where the Buran comes in, they largely copied the shuttle, but did
> they have the foresight to improve the poor parts of the design?

Largely, yes. With the added benefit of hindsight they were able to give it
much safer heat shielding and boosters, and did a million other small
improvements.

But the size remained, because Soviet intelligence couldn't quite figure out
what the Shuttle was supposed to be _good for_. The Buran was essentially a
just-in-case program: Once they figured out what the US wanted to do with it,
they'd have the launcher necessary to copy it.

Unfortunately, the US never figured it out either. For the roles the Shuttle
ended up being used in the 80s and early 90s, existing Soviet hardware was
more than a match, so the Buran was cancelled.

Only much, much later was the ISS planned around the Shuttle's capabilities
and found a limited use for its construction. (Some Shuttles, the earlier ones
were too heavy to reach the ISS with any useful payload.)

~~~
bane
> Soviet intelligence couldn't quite figure out what the Shuttle was supposed
> to be good for.

I'm reminded of this famous joke: [http://militaryhumor.net/wp-
content/uploads/2015/08/military...](http://militaryhumor.net/wp-
content/uploads/2015/08/military-humor-us-war-doctrine.jpg)

> Only much, much later was the ISS planned around the Shuttle's capabilities

IIR, the STS program (of which the shuttle was the only surviving part) was
always intended to ferry cargo and _some_ future spacestation parts into
orbit. The ISS was the eventual compromise station and was a mere shadow of
the original proposal.

------
Integer
I like this website more:
[http://buran.ru/htm/molniya.htm](http://buran.ru/htm/molniya.htm) It has tons
of info, not only on Buran, but also on the earlier Spiral and Bor prototypes.

------
ShrpErinaceidae
Why did I get the vibe I was reading pro-Buran propaganda in 2016?

~~~
mikeash
Perhaps because it takes every opportunity to point out how Buran was
superior, sometimes correctly (better automation, for example) and sometimes
not (reused boosters, and the thermal protection bit seems dubious), while
never once mentioning anything the Shuttle did better (reuse engines, or
actually do something useful).

Still, great reading.

~~~
creshal
The engine reuse isn't exactly the Shuttle program's brightest moment anyway.
The SSME was designed for _55_ uses… By the time of the Challenger disaster,
that number was 4-5. By the end of the Shuttle program NASA counted themselves
lucky when _some_ of the engines managed 15 uses; and refurbishment between
each flight was only marginally cheaper than building new expendable engines
for every flight. Even with the added benefit of 30 years of progress in
material sciences, SpaceX is unlikely to manage 55 reuses on their engines
specifically designed for it.

The Energia solution wasn't as high-tech, but it was highly pragmatic: The
boosters were also used as expendable rockets on their own right (Zenit), so
high production volumes – and easier to handle fuels – decreased prices
significantly, to the point that several Zenit-derived engines are in use by
American and South Korean companies; and the main engine was exactly the
scaled-down, cheaper, expendable SSME that NASA could have used to drive down
Space Shuttle launch costs.

~~~
mikeash
You're right, reuse didn't work out with the Shuttle nearly the way they
wanted it to. But it did work out to some degree, while Buran's version of it
never went beyond paper.

~~~
the_mitsuhiko
But also because they pulled the plug on the Buran program because they had no
use for it. They could shoot people up in rockets and that worked out cheaper
for them. The Soyuz is the most cost efficient way to shoot people into space.

~~~
creshal
> The Soyuz is the most cost efficient way to shoot people into space.

The Soyuz has been the most efficient way to shoot people into space since
1968. It was developed in parallel with Apollo, and instead of throwing it
away after the end of the moon program, they just kept it, and kept improving
it – had NASA kept Apollo and improved it instead of throwing it away, and
then throwing its successor away, then cancelling two successors in a row, to
spawn a grand total of four parallel programs to maybe find one successor, who
knows where the US space program would be now.

NASA's problems are less technical issues, and more a management one.

------
rwmj
The Shuttle, despite its many problems, flew 133 successful flights.

~~~
creshal
At a direct cost of around 1.5 billion dollars per flight. This includes a lot
of flights that were essentially milk runs, bringing satellites into orbit or
doing other light work that could have been just as easily done with much
cheaper capsule flights.

~~~
grinich
A large number of those missions were flow for the DoD, repairing/refuling
satellites and potentially also capturing enemy satellites.

~~~
creshal
Large? Of the 135 flights, almost 50 went to Mir/ISS, doing work that should
have been done by Soyuz/Progress/TKS-equivalent spacecraft in the $100-200
million range. 32 more made Spacelab flights, aka "poor man's excuse for a
space station". The remainder were split between commercial satellite
deployments (best left to unmanned boosters), regular scientific missions (the
same already done on Gemini and Apollo capsules), missions that could have
been cheaper put on a satellite (e.g. radar mapping), and _very few_ missions
the Shuttle was actually useful for – DoD missions and scientific recovery of
large payloads (the only mission profile the Shuttle alone was uniquely suited
for). Even Hubble's repair could have been done with capsules (the JWST is
planned to be maintainable by Orion capsules, should maintenance ever be
needed).

~~~
grinich
There were at least 11 classified NRO missions, and likely more with NRO
tasks. Requirements from the NRO directly influenced the shuttle program
design. I guess "large" is an exaggeration though.

They obviously didn't use Shuttle exclusively for military purposes. But most
people don't realize that nearly all government-funded scientific programs in
the US also have significant defense/NRO objectives. Even The Dish at Stanford
was funded to be used for SIGINT work during the Cold War.

I'd wager that these groups are now using advanced robotics to replace
classified work previously done via Shuttle missions. i.e. Boeing X-37

I don't think there's any maintenance plan for JWSP, capsule or otherwise. L2
is way too far away. Do you mean maintenance after launch but before
deployment?

------
epicureanideal
This article says the detached boosters fire rockets as they are landing and
deploy landing gear. Was that ever demonstrated to work? I'm curious of there
is precedent for this prior to SpaceX or just wishful thinking.

~~~
creshal
The boosters as tested did not. It were plans for a later revision of the
launch system, which were cancelled due to eyewatering costs (– by Soviet
standards, the US wouldn't have been able to do a single Shuttle launch for
the price of the entire Buran program).

------
hn9780470248775
Obligatory shuttle reading:
[http://idlewords.com/2005/08/a_rocket_to_nowhere.htm](http://idlewords.com/2005/08/a_rocket_to_nowhere.htm)

~~~
mixmastamyk
Looks like a great article so far, am about half way through.

Ha! "You know you're in trouble when the Russians are adding safety features
to your design."

------
mholt
I didn't realize .su domains were still relevant. Also, very interesting
content!

~~~
pygy_
Soviet Union. It puzzled me the whole time and only dawned on me when reading
your comment.

------
a235
On engine difference, which is critical but has not been pointed out: \- Buran
had no launching engines, whole Energia rocket has been lost (apart of
boosters?) \- Shuttle did, thus the most expensive part has been returned back
This resulted in a fact that STS launches were expected to be much cheaper
[citation needed]

~~~
skykooler
Although, the plan for the Energia launch vehicle was to return and land (the
boosters vertically, like SpaceX is doing, while they planned to put wings on
the main rocket) - however the program was canceled before they got to that
phase of the project.

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tlack
If anyone saw that note about the computer systems and wanted to learn more
about Soviet-era computers, this may be a good place to start:

[http://www.computer-museum.ru/english/argon.htm](http://www.computer-
museum.ru/english/argon.htm)

I'm no expert in this subject.

------
hcrisp
The Buran boosters came down on parachutes and then landed on landing gear --
did that actually happen during either test?

~~~
creshal
The shuttle itself completed several atmospheric and one orbital flight,
demonstrating autopiloted runway landings from orbit.

The reusable booster technology was just planned, though. The project was
cancelled long before they could be tested. I'm not even sure there were any
finalized specifications.

~~~
sgt101
I don't agree -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energia)

There were two launches - the first of a "fully armed and.. oh" space battle
station (I shit you not), the second of the Buran.

~~~
creshal
Yes, and? Both launches had the Energia in a fully disposable configuration –
the launcher was never equipped with the hardware to recover the boosters, nor
did the hardware exist.

Only the orbiter returned, like with the Shuttle.

