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When we built the Space Shuttle, russia saw that we were building it, did some napkin math and decided it made absolutely no sense what we were doing, and that

When we built the Space Shuttle, russia saw that we were building it, did some napkin math and decided it made absolutely no sense what we were doing, and that it then must have had some secret military purpose rather than any stated purpose. So they built their own lest their be some kind of space weaponry gap. Turns out that, while there were of course some military plans for the space shuttle, it just actually didn't make sense, and Russian paranoia led to the irrational design being built twice!

Swenrekcah 4y ago
Unless the real military objective was to bait the USSR to spend their resources on a fool’s errand!
- Fargoan 4y ago
  Just like remote viewing on Mars
- dwringer 4y ago
  A good cop doesn't really know why he does anything.
cronix 4y ago
They didn't just go out and build some. The KGB was stealing NASA's plans. NASA caught on (with help from CIA) and implanted falsified heat tile formulas, which the Soviets copied. Their first Buran only flew once and mostly burned up on reentry due to the bad heat tiles. The Soviets copied most of the design but used their own engine.[1] Then the USSR collapsed. Currently they are sitting in decaying hangars in Baikonur, just rotting away. There's video on youtube of people sneaking in (it's a guarded base), flying drones around them and climbing around in and out of them. It's pretty cool. [2] [1] https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/real-life-rogue-one-how-the-soviets-stole-nasas-shuttle-plans https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/real-life-rogu... [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-q7ZVXOU3kM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-q7ZVXOU3kM
- SECProto 4y ago
  > The Soviets copied most of the design but used their own engine. This is overselling it. They were aerodynamically very similar, but the shuttle had the SSME (space shuttle main engines, ~250tonnes thrust each) burning from liftoff to orbit, while Buran had only orbital thrusters (9 tonnes thrust)- all the thrust from liftoff through orbit came from the engines on Energia + boosters.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - usrusr 4y ago
    In other words: reusable upper stage vs fully reusable rocket minus the drop tank
    - SECProto 4y ago
      For certain definitions of reusable, yes. Certainly retaining the SSME's for refurbishment was a big accomplishment. I wish Energia+buran could have maintained funding for a few decades - concepts for the flyback boosters were cool and possibly promised to be more quickly/reliably reusable than the space shuttle ended up being.
    - dotancohen 4y ago
      Today the Shuttle is largely regarded as refurbishable, not reusable. Reusability was the goal, but the SRBs actually cost more to recover and refurbish than to just spin a new casing, and the orbiter was so thoroughly disassembled and inspected after each flight - including disassembling each SSME - that no definition of reusable for any other product would apply. That said, it does seem that at least one of the X-37Bs actually is reusable, in the sense that that it seems to have no major disassembly occur between flights. But it is so closely guarded that we really have only hints, not facts.
- adastra22 4y ago
  My favorite tidbit about the Buran is that it executes a complicated roll maneuver immediately after lift off. You can see the Shuttle do the exact same thing when it launches from Cape Canaveral. The reason is that the lunch pad at the Cape is orientated particular way because it was an upgraded launch pad from the Saturn V, and they couldn’t just rebuild from scratch to meet Shuttle specs. So it rolls after clearing the launch tower to achieve the correct orientation. The Buran launch pad, by contrast, is able to rotate 360 degrees. They could have just rotated the pad to be correctly aligned before launch. But no, they execute the same complicated, mission-risk-adding roll maneuver verbatim. Exactly like shuttle. I guarantee you the Buran was running stolen launch sequence code from the Shuttle.
nickff 4y ago
MIT did a special course on the Space Shuttle, and one of the lectures was by a historian on the decision to build it: https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/16-885j-aircraft-systems-engineering-fall-2005/resources/lecture-4/ https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/16-885j-aircraft-systems-enginee...
- orbital-decay 4y ago
  This newer research by Bart Hendrickx sheds a new light on the decision. [1] [2] The actual decision to build it was made by engineers, not the party or the paranoid military, and was based on wrong assumptions, like the US military requirements that were already known to be dropped, not making it into the final Shuttle design. [1] https://www.thespacereview.com/article/3873/1 https://www.thespacereview.com/article/3873/1 [2] https://www.thespacereview.com/article/3876/1 https://www.thespacereview.com/article/3876/1
spamizbad 4y ago
My understanding is the space shuttle was originally slated to have less cargo space but the airforce demanded more cargo space for reasons they never fully elaborated on. It was speculated they might’ve wanted their own vehicle to capture satellites or launch a space weapon. So the Soviet Union’s paranoia did have some justification. With that said, at least as far as we know, the space shuttle was never used for such things.
- colechristensen 4y ago
  > With that said, at least as far as we know, the space shuttle was never used for such things. There were a number of classified space shuttle activities. For example https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-51-C https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-51-C
- sandworm101 4y ago
  The actual weapon issue came from the wings. They were far too big. They were designed for a massive cross-range, such as a single surprise overflight then return to the launch center rather than risk overflying the target twice. That looked very much like a weapons delivery profile. The cargo retrieval potential was also suspect. Nukes are the one thing that could never be de-orbited into the atmosphere. Shuttle looked like something that could enable nuke weaponry in orbit.
  - Symmetry 4y ago
    In particular, the Space Shuttle looked like it could nuke Moscow from the south where there weren't any early warning radars pointed.
  - smalley 4y ago
    I mean isn't the B in ICBM for ballistic reentry, that's probably about as fast a deorbit from the height of the space station as you would get?
    - sandworm101 4y ago
Symmetry 4y ago
In fairness to the Soviets, a lot of the design of the Shuttle was constrained by requirements the Air Force put in for military purposes so that they'd contribute to the expense too. Except they backed out after the design was finalized.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
eptcyka 4y ago
That's because the Space Shuttle was supposed to carry out military missions too, and the USAF made lots of design requirements that made the Shuttle not really viable.

Swenrekcah 4y ago

Unless the real military objective was to bait the USSR to spend their resources on a fool’s errand!

Fargoan 4y ago
Just like remote viewing on Mars
dwringer 4y ago
A good cop doesn't really know why he does anything.

cronix 4y ago

They didn't just go out and build some. The KGB was stealing NASA's plans. NASA caught on (with help from CIA) and implanted falsified heat tile formulas, which the Soviets copied. Their first Buran only flew once and mostly burned up on reentry due to the bad heat tiles. The Soviets copied most of the design but used their own engine.[1] Then the USSR collapsed. Currently they are sitting in decaying hangars in Baikonur, just rotting away. There's video on youtube of people sneaking in (it's a guarded base), flying drones around them and climbing around in and out of them. It's pretty cool. [2] [1] https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/real-life-rogue-one-how-the-soviets-stole-nasas-shuttle-plans https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/real-life-rogu... [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-q7ZVXOU3kM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-q7ZVXOU3kM

SECProto 4y ago
> The Soviets copied most of the design but used their own engine. This is overselling it. They were aerodynamically very similar, but the shuttle had the SSME (space shuttle main engines, ~250tonnes thrust each) burning from liftoff to orbit, while Buran had only orbital thrusters (9 tonnes thrust)- all the thrust from liftoff through orbit came from the engines on Energia + boosters.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- usrusr 4y ago
  In other words: reusable upper stage vs fully reusable rocket minus the drop tank
  - SECProto 4y ago
    For certain definitions of reusable, yes. Certainly retaining the SSME's for refurbishment was a big accomplishment. I wish Energia+buran could have maintained funding for a few decades - concepts for the flyback boosters were cool and possibly promised to be more quickly/reliably reusable than the space shuttle ended up being.
  - dotancohen 4y ago
    Today the Shuttle is largely regarded as refurbishable, not reusable. Reusability was the goal, but the SRBs actually cost more to recover and refurbish than to just spin a new casing, and the orbiter was so thoroughly disassembled and inspected after each flight - including disassembling each SSME - that no definition of reusable for any other product would apply. That said, it does seem that at least one of the X-37Bs actually is reusable, in the sense that that it seems to have no major disassembly occur between flights. But it is so closely guarded that we really have only hints, not facts.
adastra22 4y ago
My favorite tidbit about the Buran is that it executes a complicated roll maneuver immediately after lift off. You can see the Shuttle do the exact same thing when it launches from Cape Canaveral. The reason is that the lunch pad at the Cape is orientated particular way because it was an upgraded launch pad from the Saturn V, and they couldn’t just rebuild from scratch to meet Shuttle specs. So it rolls after clearing the launch tower to achieve the correct orientation. The Buran launch pad, by contrast, is able to rotate 360 degrees. They could have just rotated the pad to be correctly aligned before launch. But no, they execute the same complicated, mission-risk-adding roll maneuver verbatim. Exactly like shuttle. I guarantee you the Buran was running stolen launch sequence code from the Shuttle.

nickff 4y ago

MIT did a special course on the Space Shuttle, and one of the lectures was by a historian on the decision to build it: https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/16-885j-aircraft-systems-engineering-fall-2005/resources/lecture-4/ https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/16-885j-aircraft-systems-enginee...

orbital-decay 4y ago
This newer research by Bart Hendrickx sheds a new light on the decision. [1] [2] The actual decision to build it was made by engineers, not the party or the paranoid military, and was based on wrong assumptions, like the US military requirements that were already known to be dropped, not making it into the final Shuttle design. [1] https://www.thespacereview.com/article/3873/1 https://www.thespacereview.com/article/3873/1 [2] https://www.thespacereview.com/article/3876/1 https://www.thespacereview.com/article/3876/1

spamizbad 4y ago

My understanding is the space shuttle was originally slated to have less cargo space but the airforce demanded more cargo space for reasons they never fully elaborated on. It was speculated they might’ve wanted their own vehicle to capture satellites or launch a space weapon. So the Soviet Union’s paranoia did have some justification. With that said, at least as far as we know, the space shuttle was never used for such things.

colechristensen 4y ago
> With that said, at least as far as we know, the space shuttle was never used for such things. There were a number of classified space shuttle activities. For example https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-51-C https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-51-C
sandworm101 4y ago
The actual weapon issue came from the wings. They were far too big. They were designed for a massive cross-range, such as a single surprise overflight then return to the launch center rather than risk overflying the target twice. That looked very much like a weapons delivery profile. The cargo retrieval potential was also suspect. Nukes are the one thing that could never be de-orbited into the atmosphere. Shuttle looked like something that could enable nuke weaponry in orbit.
- Symmetry 4y ago
  In particular, the Space Shuttle looked like it could nuke Moscow from the south where there weren't any early warning radars pointed.
- smalley 4y ago
  I mean isn't the B in ICBM for ballistic reentry, that's probably about as fast a deorbit from the height of the space station as you would get?
  - sandworm101 4y ago

Symmetry 4y ago

In fairness to the Soviets, a lot of the design of the Shuttle was constrained by requirements the Air Force put in for military purposes so that they'd contribute to the expense too. Except they backed out after the design was finalized.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

eptcyka 4y ago

That's because the Space Shuttle was supposed to carry out military missions too, and the USAF made lots of design requirements that made the Shuttle not really viable.