"John Mullen" wrote in message
...
"Peter Stickney" wrote in message
...
In article ,
"John Mullen" writes:
"Emilio" wrote in message
...
Actually they admitted they copied the US Shuttle.

More I think about Buran, it is clear that the politician who decided
to
"copy" the shuttle and not the engineers. Russian industry simply
was
not
setup to produce space qualified $20 nuts and bolts like we do. If
they
made special run to make such nuts and bolts it would have cost them
$100
a
peace. Buran must have been reengineered to be able for them to
build
it
there. That's a problem though. It's going to get heavier than a US
shuttle. Reentry and flight parameters will no longer be the same do
to
added weight. It's amazing that they made it to work in the first
place.

Actually, it was a superior design to the STS it was copied from.
Heavier
payload, more crew space and less rinky-dink stuff to blow up like the
ET
and the SRBs.

Just teh Big Honkin' booster it was hooked to. Both configurations
have their advantages, and their risks.

I can't think of any advantages to the STS's layout. What did you mean
here?

Well, the Astronauts never flew it. That tells you something.

Buran: 1 unmanned flight, total success.

Not a total success - teh flight article was structurally damaged on
re-entry. I don't know if repair was possible.

That is news to me. See for example:

http://www.astronautix.com/craft/buran.htm

'Buran was first moved to the launch pad on 23 October 1988. The launch
commission met on 26 October 1988 and set 29 October 06:23 Moscow time for
the first flight of the first Buran orbiter (Flight 1K1). 51 seconds
before
the launch, when control of the countdown switched to automated systems, a
software problem led the computer program to abort the lift-off. The
problem
was found to be due to late separation of a gyro update umbilical. The
software problem was rectified and the next attempt was set for 15
November
at 06:00 (03:00 GMT). Came the morning, the weather was snow flurries with
20 m/s winds. Launch abort criteria were 15 m/s. The launch director
decided
to press ahead anyway. After 12 years of development everything went
perfectly. Buran, with a mass of 79.4 tonnes, separated from the Block Ts
core and entered a temporary orbit with a perigee of -11.2 km and apogee
of
154.2 km. At apogee Burn executed a 66.6 m/s manoeuvre and entered a 251
km
x 263 km orbit of the earth. In the payload bay was the 7150 kg module
37KB
s/n 37071. 140 minutes into the flight retrofire was accomplished with a
total delta-v of 175 m/s. 206 minutes after launch, accompanied by Igor
Volk
in a MiG-25 chase plane, Buran touched down at 260 km/hr in a 17 m/s
crosswind at the Jubilee runway, with a 1620 m landing rollout. The
completely automatic launch, orbital manoeuvre, deorbit, and precision
landing of an airliner-sized spaceplane on its very first flight was an
unprecedented accomplishment of which the Soviets were justifiably proud.
It
completely vindicated the years of exhaustive ground and flight test that
had debugged the systems before they flew.'

Could you be mistaken? Or is this fairly new info? If the latter, I would
be
interested in knowing your source.

Well, that was one, unmanned flight. Vs. numerous ones in shuttles that aged
over time, flew in different weather conditions, etc.

Challenger was done in partly by low temperature at launch, and the foam
that hit Columbia came off the external tank, Buran also has an external
booster unit in a similar location, strapped to the belly. Both accidents
happened after numerous successes. One cannot know Buran's true odds as one
for one is 100 percent. Like a batter hitting 1000 after two at bats, will
he still be batting 1000 at the middle of the season?

STS ~100 manned flights, two total losses, 14 deaths.

A hair over a 98% success rate, a bit better than Soyuz (Which also
had 2 fatal flights, with 100% crew loss on each, (But smaller crews),
and several launch aborts. And a number of nasty landing incidents.

Really? I cannot easily find a total for the number of Soyuz missions but
feel sure it must be way over the 100-odd of the STS. Do you have better
figures?

Well there was that time one decompressed while still at very high altitude
during a landing. Not sure about others, but then again there are still
rumors that not all the Soviet era space stuff has come out as yet,
accidents, etc.

And to me the survivable aborts are an indication of the robustness of the
1960s design. The people on Challenger would have loved a surviveable
abort
system. The people on Columbia would have loved merely to have suffered a
nasty landing incident.

Well nobody ever flew on Buran to find out I guess. As for Challenger, any
survivable system under those circumstances, or in Columbia's
disintegration, would have had to be a heck of a system. The forces involved
in both cases were literally unimaginable. I am not sure if Buran could have
survived either disaster, or how she could have fared with her own mechanics
over time. Nobody can know that, I suppose.

Columbia's loss was from such a hit that I cannot be sure if any wing built
could have survived, with that kind of glide path and loss of heat
shielding. Is there any information on what Buran's heating characteristics
and glide path were intended to be, or recorded as during her flight?

(I never mentioned Soyuz btw!)

There's no objective indication that the expendable Soyuz capsule is
any safer than the STS.

Er.. how about the fact that the STS is currently grounded for safety
improvements after the last fatal crash? Leaving Soyuz as the world's only
manned orbital vehicle, other than the Chinese and maybe Bert Rutan!

Burt. Like Burt "The Bandit" Reynolds. Plus Soyux has her own history, as I
mentioned.

I'd say the Russians realised they had no need of a shuttle and quit
while
they were ahead.

More like they couldn't afford it. Both Buran and Energia (The
booster)

Well sure. It is true that their country did collapse during the
devlopment
of the Buran and Energia projects, leading to their cancellation. My point
was that this wasn't because they were inferior kit, quite the contrary.

I am certain they were fine peices of equipment, but I would run one down at
the expense of the other. Energia is a fine piece of equipment - do they
still make them? Be the thing to get a Mars craft up there to orbit for
assembly.

John