Space Transport System[NASA] VS Buran [Soviet]

[piggysanTH]

Hello :3

Just want to know that what do you think which one is better. And how do you think about two of this.

[sp1989]

I think the potential for the Buran might have been greater had it acutally had a some sort of lifespan beyond prototype. There were a lot things in the plans for the Buran that would have made it more advanced than the Space Shuttle. However since it was never seen through I think by default you have conclude that STS is better, simply because it actually was used, quite effectively. If we suspend reality and say the Buran was commissioned and launched a tenure similar to STS, there would have to be some tough arguments made to conclude STS was superior.

[Kryten]

I'd say they proved equally good at getting cancelled, both being one-for-one. Having not visited artifacts of either programme, I have no basis to determine which is a better museum exhibit, so I'll just leave that aside. In terms of actually being used for space travel, both are completely useless due to destruction and repurposing of equipment and infrastructure; I suppose that sums to them being pretty much equal.

[Tech Support]

I'd say they proved equally good at getting cancelled, both being one-for-one. Having not visited artifacts of either programme, I have no basis to determine which is a better museum exhibit, so I'll just leave that aside. In terms of actually being used for space travel, both are completely useless due to destruction and repurposing of equipment and infrastructure; I suppose that sums to them being pretty much equal.

The Buran was destroyed in 2002 when the Hanger Collapsed. two prototypes are in museums though.

[xenomorph555]

Buran was was much better on quite a lot of fronts however was never able to show it due to the Soviet collapse.

Not to say STS was bad, both were very impressive machines but to me Snowstorm takes the prize.

Here are some of the features that puts Buran higher on my list:

Fully automatic-historys largest UAV, also immensely impressive for the computer technology of the 80's.

10 member crew-although never used the epic 10 crew feature has never been repeated (dragon 3 maybe...)

About 36 tonnes to orbit-10 tonnes more to LEO then STS, mega MIR2 anyone!

Only losses about 7 tiles a flight-with a new material and pattern, Buran kept all but a few heat tiles.

Ejection seats-I sometimes get sad thinking there might have been a chance the challenger crew would have been fine if they had this

And many more...

[xenomorph555]

The Buran was destroyed in 2002 when the Hanger Collapsed. two prototypes are in museums though.

Those weren't prototypes, they were the next in the fleet! Incomplete though.

[GoSlash27]

STS had a 30 year career amassing 135 flights and put more total payload into orbit than every other launch vehicle in the world combined. Buran, OTOH, had a single unmanned test flight. Buran may or may not have been a better vehicle in practice... but it was never put into practice, so we'll never know that.

Based on the record of accomplishments it's not even a contest.

Best,

-Slashy

[Kryten]

Those weren't prototypes, they were the next in the fleet! Incomplete though.

The ones in museums are the ground testing prototypes and the jet-engined one they built for flight tests, OK-GLI. One mostly-finished one does exist, but it's just in another hangar somewhere in Baikonur, and AFAIK not viewable by the public. The rest were scrapped.

On further thought I'll have to go for Buran from the museum exhibit angle, given it'd be far easier for me to see OK-GLI in Speyer than shuttle hardware in the US.

Edited October 4, 2014 by Kryten

[xenomorph555]

The ones in museums are the ground testing prototypes and the jet-engined one they built for flight tests, OK-GL. One mostly-finished one does exist, but it's just in another hangar somewhere in Baikonur, and AFAIK not viewable by the public. The rest were scrapped.

On further thought I'll have to go for Buran from the museum exhibit angle, given it'd be far easier for me to see OK-GLI in Speyer than shuttle hardware in the US.

Ah I see, I was talking about "little bird" the 96% complete one. I thought it was on display, too bad.

[magnemoe]

They was pretty different in design, main diference was that buran was just a upper stage on a huge rocket, the main engines was not reused.

This would making an 70 ton to LEO rocket easier, yes you still needed an giant faring and an small upper stage system.

Should have making an space station cheaper as you would do cargo launch, then a buran launch for assembly.

[NASAFanboy]

I'd have to go with the STS, because it actually flew a flight that wasn't a test flight.

Actual flying hardware always trumps what doesn't fly. This is like comparing STS with VentureStar; one flew, one didn't. The one that flew will always trump the one that didn't, because even though the Buran might've been superior, it never got to fulfill it's intended purpose.

[deadshot462]

Would have been cool to have STS and Buran fly side by side in orbit, or even dock ala Apollo/Soyuz

[tater]

Better is measurable. How many successful flights. No contest. Theoretically better… then there is debate. Too bad we only got shuttle, and not the actual System of multiple vehicles it was supposed to be. The tug and nuclear ferry, woot.

[gbleck]

I would argue Buran was better as it didn't pull massive amounts of funding away from lower cost systems that where more survivable. Sts was drop dead .... though.

[tater]

By that metric the _make_up_a_name_ project by _pick_a_country_with_no_space_program_ was far superior to either

[Capt. Hunt]

Ok, I should warn you that bringing up STS on this board tends to start flame wars.

That being said, as a system that had only two major failures out of so many launches, it was a lot more successful then Buran, which only flew once, and was mainly meant as a political tool by the dying Soviet regime.

[Northstar1989]

They was pretty different in design, main diference was that buran was just a upper stage on a huge rocket, the main engines was not reused.

This would making an 70 ton to LEO rocket easier, yes you still needed an giant faring and an small upper stage system.

Should have making an space station cheaper as you would do cargo launch, then a buran launch for assembly.

That is DRASTICALLY oversimplifying Buran. It was a lot more than just a reusable upper stage.

For one, not only could it return to land on the runway- it could do so completely unamnned. And how many rocket upper stages do you know of that can re-use not only the upper stage engines, but also the payload fairings (which the cargo bay basically acted as an analog to) and the crew facilities...

On top on all that, its payload capacity was of course higher than STS. As was its crew capacity (which was a massive 10 cosmonauts). And its projected operating costs were lower. As was the projected cost-per-ton to orbit. The main problem was the the Soviet Union was simply falling apart (this was not entirely unrelated to the fact that several major Russian officials were on the CIA payroll and sabotaging the USSR from the inside, as was only recently declassified...) when Buran was commissioned, and didn't have the funding to launch the kind of major space missions it would have been capable of...

Buran *WAS* actually built though, and it DID make a successful orbital flight (even if it didn't carry a payload) before being decommissioned for financial reasons.

For some BASIC information on Buran, simply consult Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buran_%28spacecraft%29

Regards,

Northstar

Edited October 5, 2014 by Northstar1989

[tater]

CIA paid sabotage in the CCCP? LOL. Source, please.

[magnemoe]

That is DRASTICALLY oversimplifying Buran. It was a lot more than just a reusable upper stage.

For one, not only could it return to land on the runway- it could do so completely unamnned. And how many rocket upper stages do you know of that can re-use not only the upper stage engines, but also the payload fairings (which the cargo bay basically acted as an analog to) and the crew facilities...

On top on all that, its payload capacity was of course higher than STS. As was its crew capacity (which was a massive 10 cosmonauts). And its projected operating costs were lower. As was the projected cost-per-ton to orbit. The main problem was the the Soviet Union was simply falling apart (this was not entirely unrelated to the fact that several major Russian officials were on the CIA payroll and sabotaging the USSR from the inside, as was only recently declassified...) when Buran was commissioned, and didn't have the funding to launch the kind of major space missions it would have been capable of...

Buran *WAS* actually built though, and it DID make a successful orbital flight (even if it didn't carry a payload) before being decommissioned for financial reasons.

For some BASIC information on Buran, simply consult Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buran_%28spacecraft%29

Regards,

Northstar

Did not call it an reusable fairing, it was a space shuttle like SPS but without reuseable main engines.

However putting the engines on the rocket would make it far easier to use the rocket as an heavy lifter, i was some talk about doing this for the SLS too but it was never done and would be harder.

Not know if putting the engines on the rocket was done for this reason or because they had problems making reusable ones.

[Nibb31]

Buran made no sense. The Russians knew it, which is why they cancelled it rather than cancelling Proton or Soyuz.

It was really just a reusable upperstage and payload fairing that had to be launched on launch Russia's biggest expendable HLV for each mission. The upper stage and payload are typically the cheapest parts of a conventional launch, so it makes no economical sense to bring them back and reuse them.

While this architecture allowed Energia to be also used for cargo missions, it also meant that there was little point in sticking Buran on it at all.

The only reason they built Buran at all was because the US were building the Shuttle. They knew that the US Shuttle didn't make sense either, so they imagined that it might have some military purpose that they needed to match.

[Northstar1989]

CIA paid sabotage in the CCCP? LOL. Source, please.

The CIA had moles in the KGB:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/oct/13/usa.russia

What makes you think they didn't in the rest of the Russian government as well?

Most of this is still classified, but a while back some records pertaining to this were declassified that revealed several high-ranking Russian officials had been on the CIA payroll. Unfortunately, there's so much unfounded/baseless junk on the internet about the USSR and CIA that it's hard to actually dig up hard facts like that even jsut a handful of year later...

Also, although this has never been conclusively proved, there is a lot of circumstantial evidence that Boris Yeltsin himself may have colluded with the CIA to help break up the USSR (by antagonizing Gorbachev, weakening the power of the Kremlin and central government, and encouraging the Republics to revolt). Of course, he may just have well been playing the CIA in order to advance his own career, and he certainly wasn't an actual CIA agent in any sense. Do bear in mind that his father was an Anti-Soviet, however, so he did harbor some lingering hatred for the USSR and pro-American sympathies...

Regards,

Northstar

[Northstar1989]

The upper stage and payload are typically the cheapest parts of a conventional launch, so it makes no economical sense to bring them back and reuse them.

There is nothing "cheap" about a rocket upper stage. Just because the upper stage is less expensive than the lower stage doesn't make it "cheap", and doesn't mean it's uneconomical to reuse. There's a REASON that Space-X is working on re-using their upper stage as well as their lower stage.

Payload isn't cheap either- though none of this is talking about re-using it.

The Russians largely stopped ALL government-funded space launches in the time period Buran was stuck in a hanger, not just Buran. If they had the funding, they probably would have used it to launch government-funded scientific payloads. They simply didn't have the funding for large government-funded projects, and the thought never occurred to them to try and license out Buran launches for commercial satellite launches. This DOES NOT mean it made no economic sense.

Regards,

Northstar

[Albert VDS]

Somehow I didn't think a Space Shuttle vs Bruan thread would include a conspiracy theory.

[Meecrob]

Just want to nip this one in the bud...many people mention that the Buran was advanced for being able to fly autonomously. The reason is necessity - they had not completed human life support systems in time for the test flight. While the Buran's autopilot is a triumph of 80's engineering, the fact that it was just not possible for them to send a human onboard gives some insight to the future of this program. Its a MANNED spacecraft that was not funded/developed enough to carry a man/woman.

Edited October 5, 2014 by Meecrob

[Nibb31]

Also, a Space Shuttle, MUST be flown by a computer. The flight envelope is so narrow that if it exceeds the limits in any way, it breaks up. A human simply cannot fly the hypersonic reentry phase with enough precision.

The reason the US Shuttle didn't have automated landing was because nobody ever required it. The autopilot was capable of landing the Shuttle, but it still needed human presence to turn on the autopilot and to lower the landing gear. A workaround was developed for the last shuttle missions with a special cable that would allow the proper switches to be activated from the ground for contingency situations.