SPACE SHUTTLES ,to become museum pieces

[CCIP]

Originally Posted by Skybird

A German technology museum in Speyer has the Russian orbiter "Buran", it is the only piece of it's kind. It would be cool to have an American Space Shuttle there alongside it's Russian companion.

Buran was - and is! - the only space-shuttle-type vehicle that is able to fly in space and land again while being fully remote-controlled.

Shame that program never came to real fruition, other than the one flight.

By the way, the Buran at Speyer is not the actual spacecraft - it was an athmospheric flight test machine, the rough equivalent of Enterprise for the US shuttle program. That's why it has jet engines - as opposed to the Enterprise, it actually took off and flew on its own power before doing its glide tests. I'm not sure whether like Enterprise, it also lacked an actual working heat shield. I suspect that was the case.

[Oberon]

The actual Buran was destroyed in a hangar collapse in 2002 in Kazakhstan

Please sign the petition to bring a space shuttle to New York City and The Intrepid

They are already pushing too hard there for the amount of space they have, they really cannot do enuogh of their exhibitions justice(honestly I would dread to go apart from mid week off season even on condition that all the schools are busy doing some sort of exam that day).
As for the Concord exhibit.....
really one fat person wanting to get in concord and thats it for the day, not only remove the plexigalss but rip out the seats as well.

On the other hand what about that rocket place out in flushing that has loads of land, easy access but only a few exhibits and no real development of them apart from at a small local level.

[capthelm]

Originally Posted by Tribesman

They are already pushing too hard there for the amount of space they have, they really cannot do enuogh of their exhibitions justice(honestly I would dread to go apart from mid week off season even on condition that all the schools are busy doing some sort of exam that day).
As for the Concord exhibit.....
really one fat person wanting to get in concord and thats it for the day, not only remove the plexigalss but rip out the seats as well.

On the other hand what about that rocket place out in flushing that has loads of land, easy access but only a few exhibits and no real development of them apart from at a small local level.

space already made for it.

[bookworm_020]

Originally Posted by Oberon

The actual Buran was destroyed in a hangar collapse in 2002 in Kazakhstan

On of the flight test machines came to Sydney back around 1999, but ended up in pieces in a car park after fights broke out over who owened it after the company who brought it out went belly up.

I remember seeing it near the old casino here in Sydney in 2000. A sad sight indeed!

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by bookworm_020

On of the flight test machines came to Sydney back around 1999, but ended up in pieces in a car park after fights broke out over who owened it after the company who brought it out went belly up.

I think that is the one in Speyer, about the Speyer orbiter I have read that it was found during a sports championship, by a german TV crew that found it rotting in some backyard. It was bought and then transported via a ferry on the Rhine. The price including transportation was around 10 million, I believe to recall.

There was that flight test model, and a working Buran (1) that was conducting one remote-controlled flight, then never took off again and later was destroyed in that Hanger. A second Buran (2) was under construction, but never got completed although being in a very advanced construction state.

So, the one in Speyer indeed is the only existing model there is.