
Two abandoned Soviet space shuttles left in the Kazakh steppe (2017) - Tomte
http://edition.cnn.com/style/article/baikonur-buran-soviet-space-shuttle/index.html
======
im_down_w_otp
Everytime I witness the relics of the "Space Age" it takes me a few days to
shake the feeling that we might be living in a new "Dark Age".

Where the scientific & technical accomplishments of the past seem implausible
---contrasted against the modern era challenge of trying to make a reliable &
resilient API service---were it not for the documented evidence of their
occurrence and these relics left behind to marvel at.

~~~
freehunter
There were people toiling in the golden era of the Space Race doing menial
things of no lasting value as well. The idea that some people have of the best
minds of our generation being wasted just focusing on ads and APIs and
worthless things is silly.

It's like some people pretend that no one is working on space ships,
sustainable energy, electric cars, extending the human lifespan, genetic
engineering, quantum computing, memristors, real-time communications platforms
to remove national boundaries, etc, all of the stuff that is actually changing
the world and is actually happening right now.

We're not in a dark age. If anything we're in the brightest age we've ever
been in. So much cool shit is happening, so much groundbreaking and future-
shaping research is occurring, and the very nature of what it means to be
human is evolving faster now than it has in thousands of years... and the
coolest thing about it is, so much is happening that people are able to forget
about it. People are able to set aside the idea that they're holding the
entire world in their hand, wirelessly, with chips as powerful as the most
powerful desktops running silently, obeying their every command as they
connect to the World Wide Web and complain to everyone around the globe that
we must surely be in a dark age because we don't have government-sponsored
space shuttles anymore.

And that communication may very well be bounced off a satellite placed into
orbit by a private company with a launch that is so commonplace that it's not
even announced on TV anymore. Dark age indeed.

~~~
int_19h
And yet our infrastructure is literally crumbling - and repairs often take
longer than it originally took to build the thing being repaired.

~~~
hire_charts
Infrastructure requires a continual investment, which means that at any given
time you can always point at something that is, quite literally, crumbling
away. That's just the nature of the modern era - that we rely on such projects
for far longer than the original engineers could've imagined speaks to both
their and our ingenuity.

Is there truth in the idea that repairs take longer? Sure. Sometimes it's due
to incompetence and lack of funding. Other times it's for the same reason that
software takes a lot more effort to maintain/refactor than it took to write in
the first place. There's a lot of momentum you have to undo if you want to
make an old thing new again.

~~~
wallace_f
>That's just the nature of the modern era

I dont know... Japan, Korea and Taiwan can build roads and public transit far
better than they do it at home in Boston... And for a fraction of the cost.

~~~
kevin_thibedeau
We have wars to fight so no nice roads for you.

------
cbanek
There was a great youtube video of some people visiting the site which I found
absolutely riveting:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-q7ZVXOU3kM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-q7ZVXOU3kM)

~~~
adetrest
Isn't that trespassing on military property? I would shit myself, the risk is
too high to be detained and accused of spying.

~~~
trhway
>Isn't that trespassing on military property? I would shit myself, the risk is
too high to be detained and accused of spying.

in Russia it isn't blind straight application of Femida. Instead it is always
personal - you can be accused of spying or given a private tour, especially if
you have a bottle of good cognac and a high quality cold smoked salmon to
share :)

~~~
sverige
> in Russia it isn't blind straight application of Femida. Instead it is
> always personal - you can be accused of spying or given a private tour,
> especially if you have a bottle of good cognac and a high quality cold
> smoked salmon to share :)

That's the better way right there. We need more of that attitude in the U.S.

~~~
trhway
> We need more of that attitude in the U.S.

everything has its price, and as an immigrant to US from Russia, i'm not sure
that i would recommend for that attitude/approach to be applied here, at least
not in full force, may be if just a bit/sometimes :)

~~~
sverige
Yeah, my point was not to run the entire society that way. We have too much of
that on the big issues. Rather, it's OK to have it on a small scale where it's
basically harmless, like paying off some cop with a little vodka when you get
caught trespassing on some private land because you want to see some old space
shuttles. And not OK when you steal billions with some fake mortgage
repackaging that you sell to investors.

The U.S. has gone too far on the small stuff, and completely misses the big
stuff. Posted something crass on Twitter 10 years ago? That's it, you're
fired! We should consider jailing you! Amassed hundreds of millions of dollars
while earning a government salary? No problem, nothing to see here.

------
jackhack
another important difference -- while the US Space Shuttle was manned, the
Buran flew an _unmanned_ mission. It launched, orbited the Earth several
times, and landed just a few feet from the X on the runway under automated
control. A rather impressive achievement.

If not for the fact that the US&USSR were working like mad to find a way to
destroy one-another, the cold war + space race was great for advancement of
science.

~~~
moftz
The Buran was never man-rated so doing an unmanned mission would have been the
only way to test it.

~~~
avmich
It wasn't man rated - yet - because of course you're flying first flights
unmanned. Unlike those crazy Americans...

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Jaruzel
One of the hangers collapsed back in 2001, severely damaging one of the
Burans:

[http://www.buran-energia.com/bourane-buran/bourane-fin.php](http://www.buran-
energia.com/bourane-buran/bourane-fin.php)

~~~
avmich
If was _the_ Buran - the one that flew - and the roof collapsed on 2002.

------
erk__
They also have one of these at the Speyer Technik Museum in Germany [0]

[0]: [https://speyer.technik-museum.de/en/spaceshuttle-
buran](https://speyer.technik-museum.de/en/spaceshuttle-buran)

~~~
marvin_yorke
It is not exactly a Buran. It's a test vehicle for atmospheric flights, not a
spaceship, strictly speaking

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OK-GLI](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OK-GLI)

------
sailfast
I remember when another traveler (Ralph Mirebs) posted this expedition on his
own website after the first trip. Amazing to see.
[https://ralphmirebs.livejournal.com/219949.html](https://ralphmirebs.livejournal.com/219949.html)

I would also highly recommend visiting De Rueda's website for a number of
remarkable post-soviet and other ruins.

[https://www.davidderueda.com/explore/](https://www.davidderueda.com/explore/)

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yitchelle
Tangential topic. I had the opportunity to visit the Speyer technik museum a
few years back, and it was an amazing place. Among other things including the
Buran, , it has an Jumbo 747 on some steel poles so that it looks like it is
landing.

There is also a sister museum in Sinsheim which is also amazing.

[0] - [https://speyer.technik-museum.de/](https://speyer.technik-museum.de/)

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TallGuyShort
The similarity between these and NASA's shuttle is stronger than I remember.
Does anyone know if the more distinctive features like the shape in which the
heat tiles are applied, and the leading edge of the edge of the wing are
simply because one copied the other? Or are they inherent design decisions
you'd almost always arrive at if you tried to design an orbiter / plane-type
craft?

~~~
Animats
They're not that similar. Buran has no launch engine; it's lifted entirely by
the booster group. Buran's heat tiles are a better design than NASA's; they're
not as fragile. Buran was capable of unmanned operation; the only flight,
which was successful, was unmanned. Buran also was going to have a turbojet in
the tail to help with landing; NASA's shuttle landed as a glider.

The wings are almost identical, which is why it looks like a copy.

~~~
TallGuyShort
Yeah the wings are what I'm most curious about - if they're somehow the ideal
shape for what is essentially a super-sonic glider or something.

Wasn't aware the tiles themselves were that different, but the layout, with a
step near the nose? Very distinctive.

~~~
Animats
Buran was designed later, so the USSR copied the parts that worked well, like
the basic shape, and redesigned the parts that gave NASA trouble.

~~~
avmich
When Buran was being designed NASA still hadn't too much visible troubles with
Shuttle. Buran creators worked from their strong abilities and their
understanding of dangers and possible requirements.

~~~
Animats
The big headache was the tiles. They were tough to install, kept falling off,
and were brittle. That was known early, and Buran did it differently.

------
coltonv
It's crazy that the government never decided to put these into a museum or
sell them to an American museum. I think any of the several air and space
museum's in America would be absolutely thrilled to purchase one of these and
show it off.

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sandworm101
They look similar, but under the hood are very different machines. For
instance, buran was pilot-optional. It could fly without crew. It also didnt
have main engines like shuttle, making refit much simpler.

~~~
saagarjha
I’m curious why you’d construct a “pilot optional” spacecraft, presumably
adding in stuff (which amounts to weight) to support a crew that will not even
be present.

~~~
sandworm101
Shuttle flew on autopilot. The crew was largely there to supervise, at least
in terms of the flying up and back down to landing. Automated systems actually
flew the craft. The pilot was the emergency backup plan. So Buran wasn't all
that much of a leap.

Shuttle's crew did the things the autopilot could not, all the docking, all
the satellite grabbing, and certainly all the science. Buran's one flight was
just an up-and-back proof of concept. So a crew wasn't needed.

Without a crew, the pilots' only job would have been to save themselves in
various emergency scenarios should the systems fail. Take the pilots out and
you don't have to train/study/prepare for those scenarios, at least not before
the first flight. By removing the pilots, Russia reduced early program costs.
It was a form of technical debt. They would eventually have to prep for
humans, but at least they could get the craft flying first.

~~~
saagarjha
The point I was making was that you need lots of support equipment for humans,
which must be hard to fit into a spacecraft and pay to launch even if you know
you’re not going to need it.

------
shshhdhs
What a find! I wonder if this location (and the accompanying abandoned
property on the real estate) could be purchased for cheap, fixed up a bit, and
turned into a museum or tourist destination.

~~~
kweks
It's in "Baikonur", a 100km circle of real estate in Kazakhstan that is leased
by Russia for its space program. The site is not abandoned, but definitely has
abandoned pieces of infrastructure.

Getting caught in Baikonur is no joke, it's typically the FSB that respond.
With that said, typically if you're not in active infrastructure, you'll
"just" get booted out of Baikonur (or Russia, depending on their mood..)

Fun fact: another Buran sat in an abandoned lot in an Inner Sydney (Australia)
suburb for many years.

~~~
Harvey-Specter
> Fun fact: another Buran sat in an abandoned lot in an Inner Sydney
> (Australia) suburb for many years.

That wasn't an actual Buran, it was a test vehicle used to test the handling
of the aircraft for gliding and landing. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OK-
GLI](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OK-GLI)

~~~
kweks
Great clarification. From what I understood the OK-GLI was still refered to
(colloquially and officially) as a Buran, but absolutely, the buran that ended
up in Australia is not the same as the one in the Baikonur hanger.

------
mmaunder
Suggesting it may have been safer than the shuttle and referring to the
accidents is a bit absurd. Shuttle fleet logged 135 missions and 1322 days
total flight time. Cool story otherwise!

~~~
avmich
Both Challenger and Columbia disasters were at least studied informally by RKK
Energia personnel with some sound arguments how those couldn't lead to similar
disasters for Buran.

------
sctb
Also a little discussion here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17465763](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17465763).

------
DigitalWheelie
Seeing this kind of abandoned equipment really fuels the imagination.

What if it was actually aliens, or some secret cabal planning to use it for
rogue space wars, and just renting the space from the soviets? Maybe a leader
like Khan Noonien Singh and his followers actually launched themselves on a
sleeper ship undetected, with plans to return in 20 more years and defeat us
all? What did that last person leaving think on his way out, tuning off the
lights, knowing he wouldn't be back tomorrow?

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belenos46
Oh, these are things of beauty..

~~~
snapetom
I agree. I tear up when I see these things in their current state. Despite
being built to essentially destroy my country, space exploration technologies
are incredible achievements for all humans. It's the only way this species can
survive. Whether it's our doing or not, the Earth won't last forever.

I can only imagine how proud their creators must have been, putting all their
hopes and labor into them. It's a shame to see them in such a forgotten state.

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dsabanin
Cool fact is that part of Buran software was written in Soviet clone of
Prolog.

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timcederman
I remember seeing a Buran test vehicle in Sydney in the early 2000s -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OK-GLI](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OK-GLI)

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binarnosp
Adventure ever to the abandoned Soviet Space Shuttles in Baikonur

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-q7ZVXOU3kM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-q7ZVXOU3kM)

