
NASA’s newest cargo spacecraft began life as a Soviet space plane - bootload
http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/01/nasas-newest-cargo-spacecraft-began-life-as-a-soviet-space-plane/
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bootload
_" The HL-20 would be replaced as an emergency escape vehicle by the Russian
Soyuz capsule, which did not land on a runway but rather thudded into the
steppes of Kazakhstan upon return to Earth."_

This is linked to this article on the new Russian spaceport, Vostochny
cosmodrome ~
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11687445](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11687445)
80M rent per year for the Baikonur cosmodrome and less access to Kazakhstan.

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burfog
It doesn't look particularly Soviet. NASA studied lifting-body spaceplaces
long ago too.

