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.