Would Americans consider funding the Russian shuttle in the short term?

[NFS4]

LOL, why would we throw money at a piss-poor 99% copy of our own flawed space shuttle?

 

[adlep]

LOL, why would we throw money at a piss-poor 99% copy of our own flawed space shuttle?

Because some of their ideas actually work, just like Mir and IIS....

 

[MadRat]

Originally posted by: Yomicron
You wan't to send this thing into space?

Thats not a real "Buran". That was a mockup used for testing, just like the "USS Enterprise". Its leased to the Kosmopark by the government.

Edit: Oops. I said the Endeavour.

 

[NFS4]

Originally posted by: MadRat

Originally posted by: Yomicron
You wan't to send this thing into space?

Thats not a real "Buran". That was a mockup used for testing, just like the "USS Endeavour". Its leased to the Kosmopark by the government.

Hehe, the Enterprise was the flight test model that was used to showcase landing the shuttle. The Endeavour is a working, flying shuttle. In fact, it's one of the three left (Atlantis, Discovery, Endeavour). Challenger and Columbia are MIA. And the Enterprise is in some museum somewhere.

 

[SuperTool]

Umm concentrating all the money on one Shuttle wasn't enough to make it safe. Dividing it amongst two shuttles is not going to help.
Russians wasted all that money building Buran just because the Americans were doing it. Then they found out it wasn't all it's hyped up to be and killed the program. Soyuz is 40 year old design, and still is working very well.
I think it would be worthwhile joining forces with the Russians to develope a new orbiter.

 

[Dudd]

Originally posted by: shinerburke

Originally posted by: Nemesis77

Originally posted by: shinerburke
and built by more of less forced labor?

What mnakes you think that communism = forced labor? I bet that Buran was made by regural people working in regural factories.

Had a Russian/Soviet history professor in college that had escaped from East Berlin, the stories he told about factory working conditions behind the Iron Curtain, especially in the Soviet Union, were horrifying. He told more than one story about people vanishing from their jobs and they or their families were never seen again. He started planning his escape one day while he was at work(he worked at a munitions plant) and the guy just down the line from him dropped a shell or something, can't remember exactly, and the "Political Counselor) walked over, started screaming at him and shot him dead on the spot. My Proff was 23 at the time and it took him 2 years to plan his escape. Nearly got caught but made it out, lived in England for about 15 years, went to school, then came to the U.S. and started teaching here.

Yeah, there was a teacher at my school that retired before I had him that did something like that. He was Hungarian I believe, but I'm not sure. Anyways, he was forced to become a border guard, and he escaped by killing his supervisor and then running through no mans land. Apparently he did it with a friend of his, and the friend didn't make it. Anyways, he made it to America, got into college, and became a high school English teacher. He's written a book about his life, I'll try and dig up a link to Amazon.

Amazon link

 

[MadRat]

Originally posted by: NFS4
LOL, why would we throw money at a piss-poor 99% copy of our own flawed space shuttle?

Comparisons here show it to be similar but nowhere near your claim.

Another comparison.

The main differences between the space aeroplane Buran and Suttle-orbiter are follows:
- the automatic landing of Buran from orbit onto airdrome;
- the absence ot the main rocket engine on the orbital aeroplane. The main engine was placed onto a central block of a carrier-rocket ENERGIA which is able to launch into an orbit 120 tonns of payload against 30 tonns for Space Shuttle;
- the hight lift-drag ratio of the space aeroplane Buran is 6.5 against 5.5 for Space Shuttle;
- the space aeroplane Buran returned 20 tonns of payloads against 15 tonns for Space Shuttle orbiter from an orbit to an aerodrome;
- the cutting lay-out pattern of thermoprotection tiles of Buran is optimal and longitudinal slits of tile belts are orthogonal to the flow line. Sharp angles of tiles are absent. The tile belts of the Buran fuselage and fin have an optimal position.

Russia also had a smaller shuttle program called MAKS that looked promising.

 

[0roo0roo]

buran = untested design. flew maybe once.
shuttle = hundreds of flights, bugs worked out little by little and sh*t still hits fan.

what makes you think the buran wouldn't blow up, its old, its basically beta, and well, .. no point.

 

[NFS4]

Originally posted by: MadRat

Originally posted by: NFS4
LOL, why would we throw money at a piss-poor 99% copy of our own flawed space shuttle?

Comparisons here show it to be similar but nowhere near your claim.

Another comparison.

The main differences between the space aeroplane Buran and Suttle-orbiter are follows:
- the automatic landing of Buran from orbit onto airdrome;
- the absence ot the main rocket engine on the orbital aeroplane. The main engine was placed onto a central block of a carrier-rocket ENERGIA which is able to launch into an orbit 120 tonns of payload against 30 tonns for Space Shuttle;
- the hight lift-drag ratio of the space aeroplane Buran is 6.5 against 5.5 for Space Shuttle;
- the space aeroplane Buran returned 20 tonns of payloads against 15 tonns for Space Shuttle orbiter from an orbit to an aerodrome;
- the cutting lay-out pattern of thermoprotection tiles of Buran is optimal and longitudinal slits of tile belts are orthogonal to the flow line. Sharp angles of tiles are absent. The tile belts of the Buran fuselage and fin have an optimal position.

Russia also had a smaller shuttle program called MAKS that looked promising.

If you didn't know that the Buran was the "Buran," any dope would think it was our shuttle. 20 tons vs 15 tons, 6.5 vs 5.5 lift ratio. Puhlease. So they made it a little better...that's what you do when you copy designs.

Same way they copied our B1-A bomber

Tu-160
B1-A, B1-B

 

[Pastfinder]

Originally posted by: NFS4

Originally posted by: MadRat

Originally posted by: Yomicron
You wan't to send this thing into space?

Thats not a real "Buran". That was a mockup used for testing, just like the "USS Endeavour". Its leased to the Kosmopark by the government.

Hehe, the Enterprise was the flight test model that was used to showcase landing the shuttle. The Endeavour is a working, flying shuttle. In fact, it's one of the three left (Atlantis, Discovery, Endeavour). Challenger and Columbia are MIA. And the Enterprise is in some museum somewhere.

Enterprise is in the National Air and Space Museum, to be displayed in the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center when it opens in the end of the year.

 

[GroundZero]

we already have been funding it.

 

[adlep]

Nice Link here

 

[MadRat]

The airframe is one of the most expensive units of the shuttle program. The Buran imo could be fit to American standards in less than one year if they chose to do so. NASA's design was only more advanced in the aspect it included upgrades of equipment that cost about $1 billion for each shuttle. I doubt the refit of the Buran would be any more expensive than a retrofit of the other shuttles. Its not like the space shuttles run on supercomputers or anything like that. The big advantage I see is that the Buran can fly unmanned either to or from the space station, allowing it to be used as a taxi or as a rescue vehicle. The American shuttles cannot fly unmanned.