
Abandoned Soviet Space Shuttles [video] - enricotal
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-q7ZVXOU3kM
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akshayn
If you want to see a Buran _without_ hiking through the desert for 3 days, you
can go to Technik Museum Speyer [1] - they also have other great air&space
related exhibits (notably including an Antonov An-22 and a retired Boeing
747-200).

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

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sarnu
Yes, I can second that. Cool museum. My kids love it, too.

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MrBlue
My Father-in-law was on the team that wrote the OS for that shuttle.

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mrexroad
Cool! Any interesting stories he can share?

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dsl
It is really interesting how similar the Russian space shuttle is in design to
the American space shuttle. Kinda like how all of China's latest generation
fighter jets look suspiciously similar to their American counterparts...
[https://www.defensetech.org/2015/09/29/lawmaker-
chinese-j-31...](https://www.defensetech.org/2015/09/29/lawmaker-
chinese-j-31-j-20-mirror-american-f-35-f-22/)

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sitharus
That's because Buran was built as a direct response to the Space Shuttle.
Apparently the Soviets couldn't imagine civilian uses for such a large
reusable vehicle so built their own to find out what it was for.

There are also significant differences though. Buran didn't carry its own
engines, Energia provided all the launch thrust. The orbital manoeuvring
system used LOX/Kerosene instead of MMH/N2O4. Also it was fully automated, its
solo launch and landing happened under computer control.

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kobeya
It's a bit more than similarity. Watch the launch video of the Buran and
you'll see it executes a roll shortly after take-off. Why does it do that? The
American space shuttle performs that exact roll at that exact height because
the orientation of pad 39A at Cape Canaveral is wrong and it corrects as soon
as it clears the tower. The Buran launches from a different tower at a
different latitude with a different height at a different orientation... but
it performs _exactly_ the same roll. I'll let you draw your own conclusions.

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plugger
My conclusion is that you've got no idea what you're talking about!
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roll_program](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roll_program)

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kobeya
From your link:

> During the launch of a space shuttle, the roll program was simultaneously
> accompanied by a pitch maneuver and yaw maneuver.

It's the STS-specific pitch and yaw I'm talking about. And specifically that
it happened at the height it would happen at the Cape, whereas energia had a
different tower design that would have allowed the roll to happen earlier, for
better efficiency.

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caseysoftware
Amazing. If I ever get banned from entering a country, I want it to be for
something epic like this.

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amelius
The question is if you could leave the country in the first place.

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pmorici
Don't post the video to YouTube prior to making your getaway.

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nodesocket
I'm super curious how they figured out these were here and the exact location.

Second, If that were me, I'd be wearing a respirator and medical gloves. God
knows what sort of toxic chemicals are floating around.

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jlennon99
Maybe they read the myriad of old articles about the site?
[http://www.popsci.com/why-soviet-space-shuttle-was-left-
rot](http://www.popsci.com/why-soviet-space-shuttle-was-left-rot) The above is
from 2015, though I recall reading about the find years earlier.

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cbanek
Reminds me of Viceland where they toured the area around Chernobyl:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INAlUGn0RYg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INAlUGn0RYg)

Except this was like a million times more hardcore, and more awesome with
space shuttles.

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martythemaniak
You can book a flight to Ukraine and go on a tour of Chernobyl yourself. It's
kind of a standard tourist thing now, no law-breaking required.

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thesmok
For anyone who's actually going there: you have to book the tour 2 weeks ahead
because the company that will be taking you there needs to get an entry
permission for each visitor.

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canada_dry
On my bucket list:

\- tour the Chernobyl area

\- tour the Buran facility

\- sit ringside to a rocket launch in Kazakhstan

Who's in??

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joshvm
If you visit the European Astronaut Corps (ESAC) in Bonn/Cologne you can see a
lot of cool stuff - they have 1:1 mockups of the ISS (various modules)
including stickers, a neutral buoyancy lab and a Soyuz trainer. It's tricky to
get in randomly unless you have friends there (not for any security reason,
it's just not a public place), but I think they do tours every now and again.

Although why Kazakhstan? You can visit Cape Canaveral (which launches fairly
often) or French Guyana. You wouldn't want to be ringside, even if you could
get there. There's a good chance you'd be deafened. Rocket launches sound like
a fighter jet flyby even when you're in the public viewing areas.

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lmm
Don't forget Tanegashima, which prides itself on being the most beautiful
space launch site.

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locusm
Great footage, perfect use case for drones, their channel looks pretty
interesting too.
[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC73dVtWf9mpjiWYkXyIlm7A](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC73dVtWf9mpjiWYkXyIlm7A)

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JoeDaDude
This reminded me of the film Baikonur [1], actually shot on location with a
few views of the Soviet facilities there.

[1]
[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1826610/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1826610/)

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0xbear
I remember reading somewhere that those shuttles were in an old hangar that
collapsed on top of them. Looks like that wasn't true, this was definitely
shot fairly recently, drones and all.

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kayoone
At one point in the video they mention that this is what happened to the only
Buran that actually was in space. The ones in the video were never
completed/in service it seems.

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mrleinad
Such a waste. Rusia should restore those sites so people can visit them.

