The Red Blizzard | The Soviet Buran Space Shuttle Program

[@johnnywishbone831]

I've always wondered what would happened if, in some alternate reality, the US and USSR combined their space programs in cooperation. Man we could be some cool places by now.

[@tachikomakusanagi3744]

JFK and Khrushchev attempted to do just that, and look what happened to them.

[@ashokkumar3995]

Humans would have become an interplanetary species by now

[@manuwilson4695]

@@ashokkumar3995 Now it's up to Elon Musk!

[@tokyosmash]

There were talks in the 90’s and early 2000’s to possibly license Energia, shame that never went anywhere

[@lemdixon01]

They did collaborate to build the International Space Station

[@HOTSHTMAN53]

My aunt was a lead programmer on this project from the start to the end, even was in a long term relationship with one of the main directors of the project😁

[@Ben-sh1dl]

That shot of the unmanned landing really feels like something special, and then the country collapsed.

[@spartanonxy]

It really wasn't. The Shuttle would have had one and it was likely done but NASA couldn't get it through the FAA. Yes the Shuttle might not have needed people for many missions if the FAA wasn't so hostile to changes.

[@Ben-sh1dl]

@spartanonxy well now we're off into a bold new era of "experimentation" as the incoming director put it

[@VG_164]

I think the Energia rocket it launched on was far more interesting than the Buran itself. It acted as its own independent launch system, could get 105 tonnes to LEO and the booster had quite an ingenious way of landing that was a mix of parachutes, retro rockets and landing legs which would have been them fully reusable. Could have been a lunar rocket in it own might, especially if you just put a second stage on top. So so much potential in this rocket that was destroyed when the USSR collapsed and Russia became bankrupt. A partly reusable super heavy lift rocket in the 90's sure would have been something. Imagine how large you could build the space station modules for the ISS with that lifting capability.

[@udirt]

You gotta keep in mind how the USSR treated researchers and so on. In that sense, it's (one) found it's place in a museum, and best be left in the past.

[@banepo4]

@@udirt Oh for fuck's sake, these weren't Stalinist times.

[@spartanonxy]

It actually couldn't be reused. There was a design that could be studied but neither actual launcher was such and all evidence points to it having been discarded as an idea.

[@VG_164]

@@spartanonxy This is completely false. They had already built the hardware for it. Heck, the two first flights literally had the compartments for the parachutes put on it (the dark gray compartments on the top and bottom of the boosters) and the only reason they didn't test out this capability during its two only flights was because the landing hardware had to be replaced with telemetry instruments to gather data on certain aspects of the test flight. The third Energia flight (Energia 2L) woulf test out this capability for the first time and would launch in the mid 1990's, but this launch was cancelled in the late 1989's because the Soviet State couldn't afford the project anymore, despite the hardware being completed at this point in time, with the manufacturing of its two payloads for this flight being what was left to complete.

[@spartanonxy]

@@VG_164 How about a source since all I can find is a design study on it?

[@lawdpleasehelpmeno]

I love the information on Buran and am fascinated that Australia in some way was involved with it. I wish we had more information on the P-3C reconnaissance flights, maybe some interviews with the pilots.

[@grant9301]

Most of which would still be classified. There is still 2 Orion's flying downunder those are the ELINT equipped platforms, until the new MC-55A Peregrine is fully operational. Also HARS has 1 AP-3C they got from the RAAF so it will still be seen at airshows for a while.

[@Eremon1]

Buran looked way cooler with its giant Energia booster system. Not the most efficient system, but certainly worthy of being remembered.

[@jeffreychen1191]

Whenever Buran is discussed, it's customary to bring up how it was more advanced than the Shuttle because it could carry more mass into payload. But isn't part of the point of a reusable launch system not throwing your expensive liquid motors away every launch? You might as well just attach a single-use unmanned second stage to Energia and get even more mass into payload.

[@GWT1m0]

And that's what they did. That was one of the pros about the Energia platform. NASA wanted to do something similar with the Shuttle Transport System but having to pour in more money wasn't ideal. The Energia was a launch vehicle that had Buran as one of its payloads.

[@nomercyinc6783]

carrying more weight didnt make it more advanced. it cost more to throw that added weight into orbit and thats not more advanced. theres nothing great about anything the soviet union did. russia and the soviets have never had good leaders

[@VG_164]

The four liquid boosters on the Energia would land on the Kazakh steppe using a mix of parachutes, retro rockets and landing legs after stage seperation. It would land on its side in a rather strange way and after that it would be picked up by helicopters and flown back to the launch site. That is why you can see the boosters having two dark gray compartments sticking out of them, to contain the landing hardware. The only reason why this ability wasn't used during it's only two flight was because the compartments containing the retro rockets and landing legs had to contain various telemetry instruments instead needed to gather data during the test flights. The third flight would have used this capability for the first time, but the USSR collapsed before the flight could ever happen.

[@udirt]

Improving something on the second attempts is always easier...

[@ViperGTS737]

One more aspect this shuttle had was it had jet engines for atmospheric flight, it wouldn’t just glide but could also go around and even change runways, which was remarkable

[@jeffreychen1191]

Not the orbital version. There were several atmospheric flight test vehicles (basically their Enterprise) that had 4 jet engines attached to take off from a runway. The Buran did not have jets attached. You can actually visit the surviving atmospheric test vehicle in Germany now.

[@kirruan]

@@jeffreychen1191 originally orbital ones should have been equipped with two jets. But they wasn't ready for first flight

[@Mehranwahid]

Awesome coverage - I always wondered about Buran!

[@brianbassett4379]

*_"The Buran was the first space plane to fly uncrewed and land fully automated."_*

[@miguellopez3392]

Yes uncrewed planes have done landings in the 50s, its not a difficult thing to do.

[@redbaron9029]

Buran the intelligent shuttle.! Marvel of Soviet technology.

[@manuwilson4695]

...based on spying and copycat crap. 💩🤷‍♂...like most of their shit.😏

[@thomasfx3190]

It flew on time without cosmonauts not be cause they wanted to test the remote landing controls, but because the 1st Buran shuttle had no crew life support, seats or instruments, crew cabin insulation or interior panels. The USSR just ran out of money. The US Shuttle flew 135 times to Mir & the ISS.

[@nomercyinc6783]

copying american tech doesnt make it soviet technology at all. copied tech doesnt make the copiers advanced at all. theres nothing great russia or china ever did

[@manuwilson4695]

...you mean of spying.

[@SuperRustamm]

@@nomercyinc6783 just remind me what USA achieved and USRR achieved in space program

[@Dr.Know_4U]

The space shuttle was a launch vehicle. The Buran was an unpowered return vehicle. Functionally, they had nothing in common.

[@TinLeadHammer]

11:04 - There was no Roscosmos in 1987.

[@scarecrow108productions7]

Ah yes. Back then it was called "Interkosmos"

[@TinLeadHammer]

@@scarecrow108productions7 No.

[@Tim4706]

Think about space vehicles if you looks like the Sierra Nevada dreamchaser It seems like the design is very much similar to the American rescue craft for the ISS

[@scottsuttan2123]

great vids 😊

[@spacecase13]

Anybody else getting AC/DC "Rock and Roll Ain't Noise Pollution" out of the music?

[@cranklabexplosion-labcentr8245]

I saw one next to the Sydney harbor back in 2001. My 8yo mind was wondering why a space shuttle had Learjet engines.

[@karlthemarxist6806]

Did it fly over Kulgera? kzbin.info/www/bejne/mZ_cfn5sbreeeNk

[@tokyosmash]

I mean, the Venderburg thing wasn’t technically wrong

[@scarecrow108productions7]

Yep. SLC-6 was meant for the Shuttle flights from Vandenberg. That until the Challenger incident put all that in the back burner. So Vandenberg-based shuttle flights were no-go.

[@AtlasFlames97]

That model looks exactly like the Dream Chacer shuttle

[@johnp139]

Why do the pronunciations keep on changing?

[@kineticdeath]

even the mighty An-225 has been lost now. Practically the only evidence of Buran now is old imagery and documentation

[@janlindtner305]

👍👍👍

[@rogerc7960]

Inefficient way to launch satellites

[@manuwilson4695]

...as SPACEX has clearly shown the world! 🤷‍♂

[@thomasfx3190]

…but a terrific way to repair / return them. I don’t know why you SpaceX fanboys hate the shuttle so much?

[@nomercyinc6783]

the decommissioning of the shuttle is exactly why they are decomissioning the iss. no orbiter, no iss. tech that buiilt the iss wasnt inefficent. humanity doesnt deserve going into the stars

[@thomasfx3190]

@@nomercyinc6783 Man that's a lot to unpack. Are you okay?

[@jonmandelbaum5395]

I need space 👍

[@JozefLucifugeKorzeniowski]

"peaceful" programs like the US space shuttle program were not a waste even from a military technology stand point. non military centered projects always bore intellectual fruit that could be put into military research. the narrowness of vision,typical of the USSR, doomed it to second best from the very beginning of the cold war. only remarkably pliant leaders like kruschev and gorbachov kept the nation in contention with the west for so long.

[@ThommyofThenn]

How do they get all the guys to strain their necks for so long while marching? They have a big ol bowl of borscht up on a podium off to the side?

[@udirt]

No but a few days of prison if you don't?

[@ThommyofThenn]

@@udirt Haha i wouldn't be surprised

[@cowbdave99]

Then we had to pay money to ride on it Go US

[@kiwiadventures3773]

Funny that the Busan was able to take off and land after being i orbit in the 1980s.. Boeing has yet to put people on the ISS

[@miguellopez3392]

Automated landings have been in airliners since the 80s... spaceX is putting people in the ISS and over half the world's payload into orbit with self landing boosters.

[@T.E.S.S.]

lmao "Busan"

[@spartanonxy]

No it couldn't. The orbiter was not self propelled in atmosphere. There was a test unit with jets but the one that went to orbit didn't have such nor was it planned to. The engined unit was purely to test it.

[@thomasfx3190]

The US space shuttle was always a civilian project. We would have just given the design / plans to the Shuttle Transportation System to the Soviets if they had just asked instead of skulking around.

[@nomercyinc6783]

no. no we would not have given the shuttle information to russia if they asked. civilian or not. classified American tech doesn't belong anywhere outside America. other nations don't deserve American tech

[@thomasfx3190]

@@nomercyinc6783 I actually heard that directly from a NASA administrator, in person, in Houston at Johnson Space Center.

[@scarecrow108productions7]

​@@nomercyinc6783and the USSR was just so paranoid about the STS that they mistakenly thought it was gonna be a military space project, so much so...that they wanted a matching system to outmatch the American STS, so Buran was the reason behind it.

[@undertow2142]

War and the threat of war makes a lot of people a lot of money. Imagine if Russia and China became peaceful democracies who respect human rights after WW2. Imagine what we would have accomplished if a over a trillion dollars wasn’t spent on “defense” every year.

[@mirandela777]

Ugh, again the narrator abusing coke.... the music also do not help...

[@2011Matz]

It was just a rip off.

[@peppertrout]

Russia is almost always a cheap knock off.

[@ВикторМорев-в2ы]

The Age of Space for All Mankind - Began according to Moscow Time. according to the Time of the Country with the Capital in Moscow. Gagarin - The First Earthman who Made a Manned Flight into Space. Titov - The First Earthling who Made a Manned Daily Flight into Space. Leonov - The First Earthling who Made the Entrance into the Open Space. The First artificial satellite of the Planet Earth 🌏 - Russian Sputnik 1. The First stable Signal from Space (which Mankind managed to receive) was Sent to Planet Earth - Russian Sputnik 1. Russians are Pioneers in the Sphere of Space.

[@ВикторМорев-в2ы]

All NASA and European Space Agency (ESA) Astronauts from 2012, and consecutively, every year until 2019 inclusive (eight years in a row) flew into the Full Space Orbit of Planet Earth only with the help of Roscosmos.

[@ВикторМорев-в2ы]

that is, the US Space Agency - NASA. and the European Space Agency - ESA. They completely trusted the lives of all their American and European Astronauts - Roscosmos. for (8) eight (consecutive) years.

[@ВикторМорев-в2ы]

that is, the US Space Agency - NASA. and the European Space Agency - ESA. They completely trusted the lives of all their American and European Astronauts - Roscosmos.

[@peppertrout]

@@ВикторМорев-в2ы Ask the Krauts where Russian rockets came from.