Columbia shuttle lost Part II

[Solver]

Continued from http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...postid=1686995

[DarthVeda]

So with some American money going into the project, could the Buran be feasibly made flight-ready? I mean it's got a payload 5x greater than the American Shuttle...

[Lawrence of Arabia]

5x? That thing must be massive. A lot more expensive too, for sure.

[Solver]

(So much easier to follow this thread now )

Why not? I believe that, if American money is invested, everyone will be happy. A win-win situation.

[Dinner]

I doubt the U.S. would put any money into the Buran. They'll spend the money on the X-38 first unless something goes very wrong with that program.

[DarthVeda]

The american shuttle carries something like 23 tonnes of cargo, while the Buran can carry about 100 tonnes. This is accomplished because the Buran doesn't have the main engines on the shuttle vehicle like the American shuttle does, they are in the main booster rocket.

[Lawrence of Arabia]

The russians just launched a cargo rocket from the Baikonur Facility to meet up with the ISS

[Serb]

Oerdin,
Just in case if you are interested it's official Buran's cite: (just look on old pictures)

http://www.buran.ru/htm/molniya.htm

[Dinner]

The site has some cool pictures on it. It will be interesting to see if anything ever comes from it but I'd say the Buran will never see a manned space mission. It's a generation behind now and the future of manned space flight will be craft like the X-38 which don't need the external boosters and fuel tanks. since the boosters and tanks won't be destroyed each time the X-38 is supposed to be much cheaper to opporate then a convential shuttle layout. Cheaper=better.

[DanS]

The US won't put significant development money into Russia, no matter how compelling the design is. The US government is even very wary of transferring any launch technology to private businesses in the US.

[Solver]

Manned spacecraft is a whole different issue. We are actually going to need some very new types of craft it we want REAL manned missions to other planets, such as Moon or Mars. Mars manned mission is possible, but VERY expensive, while the Moon one seems quite OK.

[Lawrence of Arabia]

Boris - the mission patch

[Serb]

Originally posted by Oerdin
The site has some cool pictures on it. It will be interesting to see if anything ever comes from it but I'd say the Buran will never see a manned space mission.

Sure, the program was frozen. The cost of cargo delivered by one-time rockets is three times cheaper than cost of cargo delivered by reusable rockets such as Buran or American SS.

[Serb]

Originally posted by DanS
The US won't put significant development money into Russia, no matter how compelling the design is.

Of course, as I see it, US will stop its shuttle launches until its find out the reason of catastrophe, then it will continue SS program.

[Solver]

Of course, as I see it, US will stop its shuttle launches until its find out the reason of catastrophe, then it will continue SS program.

At least that's what happened after Challenger.