Did you know?....
The Buran 1.01 spacecraft was the only finished and operational space vehicle from the Soviet Buran program. The Buran completed one unmanned spaceflight in 1988 before the cancellation of the program in 1993. Unfortunately, the Buran was destroyed by a hangar collapse in 2002.
In 1989, it was projected that Buran would have an unmanned second flight in 1993. The cancellation of the project, however, prohibited this from ever happening. The Space Shuttle 2.02 -- which looks remarkably similar to the US Space shuttle -- was only 10%-20% complete when the program was scrapped. Without further funding, the shuttle was put outside of the factory near Moscow, and vandals have since stripped it of most of the heat tiles.
Here are some fascinating photos of the shuttle and its
abandoned launch facility.
-Jon
posted by Jon at 12:26 PM I I
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