NASA Space Shuttle vs Russian Energia-Buran - which is the better system?

[Goddess Bhavani]

One of my favorite automotive/satire blogs, Jalopnik, recently featured a post about the "superiority" of the Energia-Buran system, highlighting it has a higher payload fraction from not having to lug its SSMEs around and back to base, and the Russians being able to use Energia as a separate super heavy launch system.

Article: Did the Soviets Build a Better Shuttle Than We Did?

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

I am curious as to what the KSP community thinks and which is the 'better' system, in terms of design practicality and performance in KSP itself. Which of you prefer constructing enormous Energia type launchers, or is the NASA method of orange tank and two powerful SRBs more economical from being able to recover the SSMEs?

I haven't actually tried mounting payloads to the sides of rockets yet due to all sorts of stability issues associated with this kind of thing, but I would probably go for the Energia-Buran method as I would want to reduce the amount of deadweight carried by the Orbiter as its target will be the Mun or beyond.

[kerbiloid]

Space Shuttle:

Launch Vehicle main triple engine is mounted inside the orbiter.

This cryo-engine is absolutely useless on orbit, so the orbiter uses additional hypergolic engines for orbital operations, carrying the cryo-engine(s) as a "parasite" ballast.

But this is an obvious way to save the expensive LV engine and safely return it back to home.

You can treat it as if Dragon-size ship (Space Shuttle crew cabin) was firmly attached to the empty second stage of Falcon (with heavy engines useless on orbit), and they were equipped with wings and full-length heat shield.

The cabin and the heavy engine balance the whole thing allowing it to safely glide and land - instead of falling with its feet foremost as an empty rocket stage does.

So, Space Shuttle orbiter scheme is a simple way to save and return LV main engine.

The price is: with 2500 t system you can launch 30 t payload + crew cabin.

I.e. payload of two Protons.

But you get a reusable system quickly and relatively easily.

Energy/Buran:

The orbiter does not include LV engine, it just carries orbital hypergolic ones.

It's a ship itself, not a LV engine saver, and it doesn't have this heavy and useless ballast.

The LV doesn't need the orbiter, it can be used to put on orbit >100 t of any payload you want.

With the same 2500 t start mass as Space Shuttle was.

So, with Energy+Buran you get both Saturn V + Space Shuttle two-in-one.

The price is: to make it reusable (as was planned) you must solve much more complicated problems because you need to return several huge stages unbalanced with heavy engines at the end.

There were plans to do this (parachutes, wings, so on) - as earlier there were the same tests with Saturn stages.

So, (reusable/not reusable) Energy + Buran would be corretly compared not with Space Shuttle, but with (reusable/not reusable) Saturn-V + Dragon + 20 t cargo.

[Aanker]

I'm pretty certain it's difficult to say anything on the matter for sure, since one program was run extensively and everyone became familiar with its impracticalities and disadvantages, whereas the other was killed in its infancy and we never really got to see how it would perform in the long run.

[Scotius]

I love both. But i also love dinosaurs. Unfortunately both shuttles and giant reptiles weren't fit enough to survive in unstable environment Small, primitive mammals and capsules did - we'll see what will evolve from the survivors

[Rune]

I was always a fan of Buran and, especially, Energia. The STS reusability scheme may have saved the main engines and boosters, but reusing the SRBs cost more than rebuilding them, and the penalty for lifting the main engines to orbit was massive.

On the other hand, Buran was meant to recover liquid boosters, which should have offered much better economics (repack the chutes, replace the soft-landing tiny SRBs, inspect, refuel and relaunch), even though it would have thrown the RD-170 every flight. I don't buy the planned upgrades to land the core, that thing ended up almost-orbital, so I won't get into the planned 100% reusable proposed versions of Energia. And of course, 95mT to orbit in SHLV configuration. That is an ISS in three launches! And you don't put anybody at risk in cargo flights!

Plus, a more advanced OMS/RCS system with common, non-toxic propellants, autonomous flight capability, higher payload in shuttle configuration, more downmass... in pretty much every metric, it was a superior system.

Not that an even more superior system couldn't have been built by putting the reusable shuttle on top of the booster like it should have been. That would make the stresses much more manageable, and put the manned spacecraft well away form the dangerous rocket, where an escape system could whisk it away in a pinch. Reusable boosters and shuttle stage, expendable core, and the core+boosters can be used as a cargo HLV. Short of like Arianne+Hermes config (which also has a much saner throw weight, Buran was "a bit" too big at five times the payload) but with reusable liquid boosters.

Rune. Bonus points for Buran: its boosters made a pretty decent light launch vehicle, Zenit.

[Nibb31]

"Superior" is meaningless. There is no "better" spacecraft. Either you meet requirements or you don't. The requirements for STS and for Buran were different, but we can fairly say that none of the met their original requirements, therefore they were both failures.

The whole point of the US Space Shuttle idea was to reduce launch costs. It was supposed to do this by bringing back the most valuable part of the rocket: the engines. Recovering payloads or cross-range were secondary goals. The rest of the vehicle, the spaceplane design, the infrastructure, the clumsy SRB design, the disposable tank, were only super-complex solutions to the sole problem of bringing back the engines. So, it achieved the goal of bringing back the engines, but it failed to do so economically.

The Russians knew that the US Shuttle made no sense economically, so they figured that there must have been another secret military reason for building it. Therefore, Buran's primary requirement was to match the US Shuttle's payload launch and retrieval capabilities. Cost reduction was secondary, and would only have been possible if they had made Energia reusable, which was the original plan.

Launching Buran unmanned and not recovering the engines basically made it the worlds most expensive reusable payload fairing. In the end, that design made no sense at all.

[YNM]

I recently remade a Buran-Energia (although Buran engines thrust helped the ascent stable) in-game, delivering 15t to LKO. Not so much for my shuttle attempt...

Both have their own superiority - Shuttle for it's recovery scheme (that, at least, works - don't get me into the "plans vs reality"), and Buran for it's unmanned feature (and that's the only launch - compare with other russian launchers that's quite often crash, bar R7) and the other use capable Energia. You can't tell what's best until you get a requirement. Shuttle was intended for frequent service so reusability is a huge thing. Energia is there for all forms of super-heavy launches, puting Buran as payload for crewed flights. You can't tell what kind of car you'll need until you know where you'll use it. Same for other things, from optical tools (kind of telescopes) to your kind of bed.

Edited June 24, 2015 by YNM
Clarifying...

[Rickenbacker]

They were both great ways to waste huge amounts of money while accomplishing very little. But at least the Shuttle WORKED, and had a budget, so that it did manage to put some stuff in orbit. But just imagine where we'd be if we'd spent the same money on going to other planets and so on.

That said, the Buran is a little prettier .

[tg626]

I find that from an engineering perspective Buran-Energia wins, but I also see it as STS Mk2, something of the advanced version of the shuttle which I suppose is to be expected since it was based on the shuttle. I think it had tremendous potential. On the other hand, even with it's shortfalls on pre-production promises and now obvious flaws, the American Shuttle obviously accomplished a great deal more.

[Kryten]

As I said last time this came up, the current role for both systems is that of museum pieces. I can go see OK-GLI in Speyer much easier than any of the STS orbiters, so Buran is clearly superior for me.