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When visiting the Technikmuseum Speyer recently, I had the opportunity to see an actual Buran, the Russian Space Shuttle, on display. Today, it is easy to forg
by sentenza 13y ago
When visiting the Technikmuseum Speyer recently, I had the opportunity to see an actual Buran, the Russian Space Shuttle, on display.
Today, it is easy to forget that the Russians percieved the Space Shuttle as a weapons platform. The tactical advantage of "coming out of space" to deliver a payload made them build their Space Shuttle clone.
Buran never had any civilian purpose. After all, they were quite happy with Soyuz for all research purposes.
- Crito 13y agoThe Shuttle may not have been a weapons platform, but it was designed specifically with military missions in mind. It was given it's massive cross-range capability (those massive wings (and mass that goes with them)) so that it could return from polar orbit missions. There was an idea of going into polar orbits and literally snatching Russian spy satellites out of the sky and flying them back to the ground. No polar orbit missions were ever performed, however there were several classified DoD missions to orbits with lower inclinations.
- erichurkman 13y agoAnd, as I recall, part of the agreements to fund the Space Shuttle to begin with came from the military and spy agencies: a better capability to launch and service spy satellites. When the Space Shuttle program began, they planned for hundreds of flights, around 50 per year. The shuttles were only designed to last 100 missions before retirement. We were supposed to get a new shuttle rotating into service every 4 or so years.