Soviet space shuttle programme

[phavoc]

For those that like to follow this, here is an interesting article with some more background but also some comparisons between the US and USSR shuttle programs.

http://flightclub.jalopnik.com/did-the-soviets-build-a-better-shuttle-than-we-did-1713379466

 

[simonh]

To be fair to the US Shuttle, it was in srvice for 7 years before Burn's maiden flight so it's hardly surprising Buran had a more advanced design and in particular more capable computer controlls. The article also doens't mention the actual reason the STS orbiter carried the main engines - so that they could be re-used. That may not have actually panned out in terms of saving costs, but it's important context.

Simon Hibbs

 

[phavoc]

To be fair to the US Shuttle, it was in srvice for 7 years before Burn's maiden flight so it's hardly surprising Buran had a more advanced design and in particular more capable computer controlls. The article also doens't mention the actual reason the STS orbiter carried the main engines - so that they could be re-used. That may not have actually panned out in terms of saving costs, but it's important context.

Simon Hibbs

You bring up some very valid points. It took a long time for the shuttle to come to fruition, going through multiple hands and redesigns. The Russians would have benefitted from NASA's successes and failures so they wouldn't necessarily have to follow them.

The re-usability issue was something that plagued the program from its inception. It never was fully realized and I think it's fair to argue that the path they took wasn't the "best" of both sets of options. It's almost like they decided to take the worst ideas and integrate them so that they had many of the problems and few of the advantages. But NASA was too wedded to the program, and their contractors were too dependent upon it as well.