The Buran story always makes me really sad. People dismiss the immense work required to not just design it and build it, but it also performed it's FIRST mission flawlessly. It was no less impressive than the US Shuttle. I am fortunate enough to own an intact, complete heat tile from the Buran, and I intend to create a display of it, with a nice Buran model next to it.
Energia and N1 were so close to being the best rockets ever built. It just goes to show you that politics trumps everything. It's especially sad considering that Americans and Russians were figuring different things out that could have been super complementary down the line, with more and prolonged competition. Instead, all of that Soviet expertise is more or less lost and untapped now and NASA is forever (forced into) recycling old Shuttle parts and getting nowhere either.
@@Yutani_Crayven I think the same thing, with the modulo that Russia was funding terrorism and evil around the world, which was the legitimate political concern. It shows that great technology work isn't always done in a way that can safely be preserved. (Due to the extensive cost of research and manufacturing that went into that vehicle, it would have been difficult to resurrect the project in such a way that it saved the successful research and manufacturing capability without letting the original investors benefit from its superiority (or benefit at all, for that matter).)
@@bradallen1832 is smoking the good stuff lmfao. "Funding terrorism and evil"? Sounds a lot more like the US now, than Russia at any point in its history.
@@Yutani_Crayven All of N1 launches ended in a failure. And if you didn't watch attentively, N1 had lower payload capability than Saturn-5 despite higher power and thrust.
Yeah but why use the Buran further? It was no cargo carrying system in and of itself, but a cargo of the Energija. It was build to have the possibility to launch and catch satellites and potentially launch bombs. After the Soviet Union collapsed it lost it's role. The Russians had a spacelab with the Mir space station and there was no demand for an ultra heavy lift rocket.
I was Privileged to work on the Black Arrow project, designing part of the satellite ground support and digital comms equipment and installing it in a transportable container for Australia. The cancellation of the project after its successful launch still hurts.
I've seen the Buran twice. First when they brought it to the technical museum on an ship and then 2 years later in the museum and i have to say that its gorgeos. Its just giant and you can't believe, that there are even bigger things going to space, even while you read the facts.
Black Arrow had a R&D budget of £2.5 million per year. That has to be a record in how little to spend to get an orbital vehicle operational. But who can resist the prospect of free space load deliveries.
@Robert Willis Black Arrow was a flawed program from the start, the launch capability was limited and the only orbit you could fly out of Woomera was a polar one to the north. The Ministry of Aviation and Conservative Government basically ok'ed the project to keep Saunders Roe in the rocket business after the Black Knight programme had finished which had been a rocket used to develop warhead re-entry vehicles for the Blue Streak IRBM.
@Robert WillisThat is today, there wasn't a market back then for it. Black Arrow was nearly canned in 1965 before it even flew and was put on ice for a couple of years before the first rocket flew. The upcoming commercial market for satellites in the late 1960's were ones that could operate in geo-sync orbit for telecommunications and weather monitoring. Tony Benn, the Minister of Technology had a big problem, a shortage of money and a shedload of projects that had direct practical befits to the whole UK and not the Space Sector. He had a choice, spend on the launchers or spend on the payloads. He saw a much bigger return on the later so Britain concentrated on the later (and did quite well at it). The US offer included building parts for US Shuttle related items, some of which actually flew. Blue Streak/Europa had the same issues, couldn't put more than a ton into LEO and totally useless for putting any decent sized Comsat into GEO.
The UK has about 5% of the entire space industry these days iirc, which isn't bad for an industry sector that's had no ( UK ) government support at all for most of it's existence. Losing the experience from building a launcher is pretty sad, but unfortunately that's the late 60s/early 70s - any scientist or engineer who wanted a decent career emigrated thanks to the state of the economy & investment at the time. The various governments of the late 50s & the 60s had done their best to strangle development in high-tech engineering areas already ( not helped by the US trying to strangle any competition post WW2 ). Naively despite growing up with some of my first memories being constant strikes, crippling inflation & worries about brain drain I still tried to go into engineering - extremely glad I made the jump into software instead.
@Robert Willis similar happened to the TSR-2. The story goes all the parts, plans and tooling was destroyed on the signing of the contract for the US to supply the F-111 which I believe was delayed or even didn't happen in the end
Actually people don’t know this, but the secret full flight tests prove the Buran was actually a huge success. The Russians built it, launched it, and landed it back on the Run way. A fully functional Buran WORKED. I have a picture of the Buran as it is landing on a runway as it came from orbit. Buran program was basically cancelled because the Russian engineering team did not see a future for Space shuttles after the Challenger Disasters. The realized Shuttle designs had secret fatal flaws. Hence program cancelled. But by all means, Buran was a success. Idk how people pronounce it but I say Ber-anne. And Ener-gee-a.
That's rather conservative in NASA's case, unfortunately. NASP, X-33 VentureStar, etc. All tried to be replacements for the Space Shuttle, but "but my jobs program" happened every time.
Hey Tim. Keep up the great work, Love from Nepal. People like you and Scott Manley are inspiring our next generation of space nerds many of whom will make giant leaps for mankind. Looking forward to part 2. PS also enjoying your evolution with you toning down the space suit shtick.
Curious Droid did a very good video on the black arrow. It was much more than just an "expensive" rocket. Then again he does very good videos in general, his one on the Energia and Buran are well worth watching also.
Buran will always be a sad story, especially when paired with the Energia. It was just a much better version of the US Space Shuttle. And actually, the Russians looked into their own solid rocket boosters at first as well for the Buran, after all, NASA's plans were all public, but decided against it in no small part because they thought solid rocket motors were just too dangerous.
Never underrate the Russians. They know *exactly* how to make cars, and so rockets. I'll openly say, no matter how old the vehicles are from the Soviet era, all you need to do is upgrade to NASA's software, and what you have is a perfect launch vehicle. Even for one who lives in Britain, I consistently believe in Russian philosophies of making things. Make something reliable and rugged, with easy upgrades. This is why the Soyuz has been around for 60 years. And as a result of this, three cheers for the Russians!
@@adamp.3739 My favorite comment on that is an outtake from Top Gear on the Lada Riva: "Then there's the engine, which was designed to run on Russian petrol. This had an octane rating of 76, and that's not really petrol. That's spicy water."
@@SxGaming3390 We did the exact same thing after WWII, taking German engineers like Wernher von Braun and having them build the rockets that eventually took us to the moon.
I do not agree with you. Buran was losing a lot of the RD-170 engines, the central tank and all four accelerators. While Shuttle lost only hydrogen tank. His boosters landed on parachutes, and his engines - RS-25, he brought back. Thus, the Shuttle had a greater degree of reusability than the Buran.
As a clarification, being a native speaker of both languages, it is /boo-RUN/ but the "oo" is short with stress on the second syllable. with Energia, it's more like /eh-NER-gee-yah/ again with stress on the second syllable and a hard G like in egg. Love the channel, you're making a lot of Tim's out there happy to share the name!
@@Frahamen Dont blame the language, blame the Vikings Romans, the French who have strongly influenced the development of the language through consecutive invasions. And now the internet, giving us new phrases like "nowadays" the English way to say it would be: at this time, or today...
Shame that NASA is forced to re-use all of these old parts just to keep the jobs where they are, instead of getting free reign in starting from a blank slate and designing for a mission rather than for continuous use of existing parts. So many years, so many billions of $ wasted on political and economic corruption... when these engineers are capable of so much more. It's... such a waste.
@@Yutani_Crayven very well put, and thats the reason chances are it wont get cancelled. Its got a job and it is doing it very well. Its job is keeping contractors and congressmen happy by keeping them on payroll.
@@thomaswijgerse723 and Deklusjesman I believe NASA knows what they are doing. It really isn't made to be cheap. It is made for people to have jobs. and that's really important for many. They know about BFR (now Starship) and even say it may be better, but remember, NASA has had 60 years of experience. and SpaceX's starship can't be possible without NASA. Elon even says NASA is smart and because of NASA, they can make Starship
The irony with Black Arrow is that that the British government decided to invest in Concorde instead, thinking that it was a more commercial venture. The UK could have had an early share in the growing orbital launch market, and with a relatively modest development cost.
As a Russian space enthusiast, I want to say a big "Spasibo!" to you for such a wonderful review of both Buran and Energia programs. It is indeed a tragic loss for space flight in general that these vehicles never flew again. And it is twice sad that now they can't really be resurrected, now or in the future, as Russia do not have the necessary capabilities and technology anymore.
The RD-170 has four chambers because they could not fully solve the problems with combustion instability on RD-270. If it was built the inline version of Energia with eight boosters known as Vulkan would have been the most powerful rocket in the world with a payload of 200 tons which even beats Ares V's proposed payload of 188 tons. It could have lifted the parts for a crewed mission to Mars in just two launches.
And also there were some planned features on Buran-Energia which are STILL being considered for implementation for future Russian rockets. Think about it, whole 30+ years later and it's still in some regards ahead of the time TODAY.
The buran never fired it's engines it did one glide test what are you talking about not to mention they stole a set of prints from the shuttle engineers
Nah, the Jupiter III (Yet another Space Shuttle derived launch vehicle) concept takes the cake. So imagine 3 space shuttle tank, line them up like Delta IV Heavy, put the second stage engine beneath the middle tank, then put the first stage engine underneath the 2nd stage engine (feed off from the side tank), then put 4 SRB around the middle tank. Apparently can launch the Constellation MTV by itself, so...
Man i would have loved for the Buran and Energia to have been continued. Apart from having cool names (according to wikipedia Buran means "Snowstorm".....That's badass), they were both such brilliant feats of engineering. Those pics of the destroyed and abandoned Burans really are sad.
Don't forget HRSDM, the Hubble Rescue, Servicing and Deorbit Module. They got as far as acquiring flight hardware from a previously cancelled program as well as a Dextre ground spare in order to accelerate development. It got cancelled after Return to Flight for the shuttle and the placing of SM-4 on the launch schedule. Much of that work led to the Satellite Servicing Projects Division which is launching its third experiment to ISS on the next CRS mission.
Everyday Astronaut A lot of folks at SSPD are from Hubble pre-SM4 and should have the juicy details. I was just a worker bee on the periphery at the time.
Loved this video. The Buran/Energia combo should’ve flown more. No doubt about it. That thing could’ve been what the world desperately needed at the time. We’d be much farther along in our space developments and achievements if this thing became Russia’s workhorse rocket. I am very confident in that statement. And the Lipstick rocket was still pretty cool I think. I hope to go see it one day too. Along with the Buran glider in Germany.
The ultimate troll would be if you announced, then cancelled the last video in the series! (I hope you will mention the russian MAKS spacecraft, and the incredible RD-701 tripropellant engine that was designed for it.)
Thanks for this very informative video Tim! FYI, Buran is pronounced "Booráhn" in Russian, as the U in Russian is more like "oo" in English, and the emphasis is on the "a". Also Energia is simply pronounced "Enérgia" with the emphasis on the second "e" and the "g" is like the one in "Go". Keep those interesting videos coming!
I was astounded when I learned about the Black Arrow as a kid, and then even more so that it was cancelled. Post-war Britain was utterly broke, and despite the program being extremely cost effective it just caught the bullet the same way Apollo did. 3:20 I've seen it and it's still the only actual rocket hardware I've seen in person. I hope to change that one day
The UK didn't finish paying back WW2 loans from the US until 2006 I think. Meanwhile the US & UK rebuilt Germany & Japan. Funny how the world works sometimes.
@@haraldhimmel5687 Yes, a large percentage of that was loans - and the UK had to arrange more loans on top ( and had to arrange things *during* the war too ), and fund post-war activity as a major member of NATO as well as it's own commitments. France was in a similar position but with rather less commitments. There was a definite lack of proper leadership both before and after the war ( a running theme with Britain anyway ) but 6 years of war with over a year of it more or less alone against two other nations pretty much wrecked what was at the time a a world power, and one that was needed to be a strong one post war. Was in the best interests of the US to make sure the British Empire didn't return to it's previous economic strength though, so prop it up & then make it pay over time. Odd to think given current relative strengths, that in the 1920s there was a serious risk of an Anglo-American war...
I remember reading about one canceled project that would take the final stage fuel tank, orbit it, and eventually be converted into a small (Skylab size, anyway) space station complete with solar panels and a shuttle docking port.
One can pray that SLS joins this list and we only see at most a single billion+ dollar launch from the boondoggle. Funny you brought up the massive cost of the Constellation program and didn't compare it to SLS. Which was supposed to cost $14-18 billion for overall development and less the $500 million per launch. Now it's ballooned to almost $27 billion spent on its development so far and though we haven't had an official update on cost per launch, estimates have it between $1-2 billion every single time the completely expendable launch vehicle flies. Can we get a video on this topic of should we cancel SLS and instead fund commercial super heavy lift vehicles instead? Time to seriously explore throwing SLS in the trash so it quits dominating the budget of NASA like the Shuttle used to do.
NASA has already confirmed that in case of successful development of the BFR, they will give up the SLS. But the fact is that BFR is waiting for a long way that will be difficult. He is only at the beginning of development. For this reason, NASA is still developing SLS.
Buran was a payload that delivered payload. It was extremely expensive and inefficient way to deliver things to orbit. But Energia was a beast, second only to Saturn V.
I remember seeing the Booster stage of the Black Arrow sitting outside the William Creek Hotel in Outback Australia, along with other rocket hardware that crashed into the dessert. I remember looking at it, and marvelling that this stuff cost millions of dollars to build, then some guy driving around his Cattle Station found it and slung in it the back of his Ute and drove it to the local pub.
There was actually a Energija II planned but unfortunately it never left the drawing board... It was a lot cooler because it was supposed to land it's four boosters AND the rocket itself autonomously using wings!
This is how the board meeting for the Aries-1 went like this NASA head honcho: what will we do with the spare SRBs from the shuttle and all our spare parts from everything else we built? Head of design: I think we should built a rocket. NASA head: is it cheap? Head of design: yes we will just search scrapyards and eBay for parts.
The Black Arroe looks like the old Missile Pop you could get from an ice cream truck - red on top, white in middle, blue on bottom. Don't know if those are still around because it's been literally decades since I got anything but a headache from an ice cream truck (I had a place near a public park and one would go by 10x a day in summer playing the opening bars of "The Entertainer" on loop).
No joke, Tim, I was driving into work today and thought 'I really hope there's a new Everyday Astronaut video, I could really use one'. Wahooooo! Thanks for everything you do broheim! In a virtual world of garbage, pointless channels, you and yours stand as examples of what the internet could and should be all about. High quality, meaningful entertainment that enriches the mind. Your videos are more than view grabs, they're works of art! Mad respect!
There was another buran spaceplane that was moved to Gorky Park in Moscow in 1991 or 1992. I took some pictures of a co-worker's kids playing around it. They stripped all of the heat shield tiles off of it and gutted the airframe to make a novelty restaurant for tourists. If its still there, it might be easier to see than the ones at Baikonur.
The Russian alfabet is very easy to learn. Once you know that you just need to read the Russian name. I've learned it in a day. You'd be happy to know that. Love your video's. Greetings.
The Buran is one of the most exciting pieces of space tech to me. I am just so fascinated by its story and I've also seen one of the Prototypes (the OK-GLI (BTS-002)) in person, it is on display quite close to where I live. I am also fascinated by the fact that to this date there are two orbiters rotting away in an abandoned Hangar somewhere in Russia Edit: 5:56, yep, that one :D
I love your music, and your video's bro. As soon as you said your music was on spotify I immediately went there, Followed and saved everything my friend! I enjoy the content you put out there so keep up the great work. A while back I thought about doing something similar to what your doing now but I had no idea how to go about it. I have enjoyed "Everything Space related" since I was a little boy and I feel like I could offer a lot of insight to this world. What steps did you take in the beginning? Is there any helpful hints?
Someone really should tell the Russians about doing basic maintenance on, well, absolutely everything. That they just leave out in the snow. This is the best video I've seen from this channel,out of MANY great ones. Keep it up!
how does the Energia rocket carry payloads on his side without losing balance ? i know the shuttle does this with engines but the payloads don't have engines
The Buran program wasn't a total loss - it gave us the An-225 transport plane, by several measures the largest plane ever built, and which is still in productive service. Only one has flown, but Wikipedia says that a partially built and then mothballed plane is now in the process of being completed.
The Ares I, now known as the OmegA = awesome. Not only is it simple, it doesn't have a ridiculous number of moving parts, it has an incredible energy density and thrust.
There are tours to Baikonur provided by various tour companies, they are not cheap, but you get to see Buran and other launch sites. You can even plan you trip to see a rocket launch.
I asked my dentist's Russian receptionist this morning about pronouncing Buran and Energia. She says it's BOO-ron and en-ERG-ia. The 'r' in Booron had a little roll in it. The 'g' in Energia is hard like Garage.
Hey Tim! If you ever make it out to the San Francisco Bay area, head north to Novato. There you will find a private space collection set up as a mini museum in a strip mall. Inside that museum is the crew hatch from the ONLY flown Buran orbiter. No idea how the owner got it, or how much he paid. Almost sad really, it's sitting in the back, in a corner on the ground, totally accessible to kids, etc!
It is a bit weird how Buran could fly completely autonomously, while AN-225 that was built to move it around, needed 6 people to operate. While newer 747's built in mid 80's had enough automation for only two pilots to fly them.
There is a Black Arrow rocket on display in the Science Museum in London! you should visit they have the Apollo 10 Capsule there a Soyuz capsule and a mock-up the ESA's and JAXA's BepiColombo spacecraft! I'd love to finally meet you!
Im glad india started its space agency early!!! Now we are almost self sufficient to launch all our satellites.... Now britons cry about aid given by them to Indian ngos like they r doing any favours to Indians!!! Post brexit im sure britons will be glad not to hv space agency!!! 😁
Don't worry about the UK, we have a space agency. The construction of a commercial space centre has also been approved on the north coast of Scotland. We're also, and will continue to be, members of the European Space Agency.
@@deepakfornever I don't know which definition of poverty you're going off, but rest assured we're not starving to death here - obesity is more of a problem. In any case, if you want to help "the poor", the best way is to provide opportunities for business and employment - and the space industry is a good place to invest, being as it's one of the few industries that continued to grow through the Great Recession.
Delta III is another one. I worked on Delta III. In parallel with Delta III, Delta IV preliminary design was going on to win the future EELV contract. Boeing won a good portion of EELV and Delta IV went forward into production. Delta III had a launch failure in its 1st launch, an issue with its Aerojet RL-10 on its second flight but did have a successful launch of a dummy payload on its third launch. Then it was cancelled and replaced by Delta IV. However many of the Delta III products like upper stages and fairings were used on Delta IV. Delta III utilized a lot of composites and provided an experience base in designing composite launch vehicle structures to Delta IV. The knowledge gained by all of us on the Delta III design team that switched to Delta IV provided good launch vehicle development experience to the Delta IV team.
Just a little info for you, the old B&W footage of lorry carrying the rocket was I believe not of the desert launch sit in Australia, but shot in the Isle of Wight on south coast of England , which was where they static fire tested the engines.
We should keep the governments fingers as far away from the BFR as we can. We've seen how NASA paperwork and fear of risk-taking has helped slow the pace of Commercial Crew, and once they get in on the project they will start asking for 'small' changes that add years to the timeline.
@@wheresmycar9559 Literally everything we do involves some level of risk; it's all about the level we are prepared to accept. NASA's attitude used to be arguably far too lax (see Shuttle), now it has swung the other way (at least when it comes to USA launch vehicles). And to a point you can understand it, because if a (US) vehicle fails and kills crew, a whole bunch of people in NASA get very publicly dragged over hot coals. As for the Shuttle itself, that thing was a wonderful piece of engineering that was also a death trap. NASA's safety attitude at the time compounded the risks by ignoring screaming warning signs again and again and again. And they put crew on the first flight. NASA makes some amazing probes but their mannned program has atrophied and turned inwards.
@@TheOneWhoMightBe Well, yes, all of spaceflight is incredibly risky; however NASA is not trying to delay the commercial crew program out of spite like you made it sound in the original comment. NASA has been in the manned-flight game for many years and have had many people die due to small errors that at first were simply overlooked and ignored. They are trying to make sure SpaceX and ULA get it right the first time so that they don't have their reputation smeared. Well, I should say ULA's reputation smeared as to most SpaceX can do nothing wrong. Regardless, the thought process around the shuttle disasters are likely to reappear, especially in the commercial side of spaceflight where every day extra of a delayed flight is a day without profit. NASA is just trying to get rid of the bad habits before they start.
@@wheresmycar9559 I'm not suggesting NASA is trying to delay out of spite; I said it was the result of paperwork and fear. From my POV out here the NASA safety culture has swung from 'I don't care what the actual engineers say, launch it anyway' to 'don't launch if there's even the slightest risk' (and as you say, spaceflight is dangerous, so there's no such thing as risk-free). Re smearing reputations, ULA's reputation is unlikely to be smeared: they provide *extremely* reliable launch vehicle but they do so at a high cost. SpaceX might be more likely to be 'smeared' because they're the 'risk-taking young upstart and this was always going to happen' etc. I think NASA is more trying to cover their own behind rather than ULA/Boeing's or SpaceX's, since they're running oversight over the program (which is probably why, publically, NASA basically shrugs their shoulders when Roscosmos has a failure: not our job) and a LOV/C would be a nightmare for their administration.
Here in the U.K. everything built either breaks after the first use, or works so well that we cancel it out of fear it is possessed
Or the Americans force us to cancel it because it is better than there stuff.
Yes we have given up on space
The UK are very tenacious when they set their minds to something. It sucks they didn't pursue a space program, they would be leaders in it for sure.
@@_starfiend good joke
@@notcharged9179 that’s sad
The Buran story always makes me really sad. People dismiss the immense work required to not just design it and build it, but it also performed it's FIRST mission flawlessly. It was no less impressive than the US Shuttle. I am fortunate enough to own an intact, complete heat tile from the Buran, and I intend to create a display of it, with a nice Buran model next to it.
Energia and N1 were so close to being the best rockets ever built. It just goes to show you that politics trumps everything. It's especially sad considering that Americans and Russians were figuring different things out that could have been super complementary down the line, with more and prolonged competition. Instead, all of that Soviet expertise is more or less lost and untapped now and NASA is forever (forced into) recycling old Shuttle parts and getting nowhere either.
@@Yutani_Crayven I think the same thing, with the modulo that Russia was funding terrorism and evil around the world, which was the legitimate political concern. It shows that great technology work isn't always done in a way that can safely be preserved. (Due to the extensive cost of research and manufacturing that went into that vehicle, it would have been difficult to resurrect the project in such a way that it saved the successful research and manufacturing capability without letting the original investors benefit from its superiority (or benefit at all, for that matter).)
@@bradallen1832 is smoking the good stuff lmfao. "Funding terrorism and evil"? Sounds a lot more like the US now, than Russia at any point in its history.
@@Yutani_Crayven All of N1 launches ended in a failure. And if you didn't watch attentively, N1 had lower payload capability than Saturn-5 despite higher power and thrust.
Yeah but why use the Buran further? It was no cargo carrying system in and of itself, but a cargo of the Energija. It was build to have the possibility to launch and catch satellites and potentially launch bombs. After the Soviet Union collapsed it lost it's role. The Russians had a spacelab with the Mir space station and there was no demand for an ultra heavy lift rocket.
Excuse me? Rocket parts falling on populated areas? In Soviet Russia and Communist China, populated areas fall on rocket!
and people crush the rocket
Pokémon catch you
computer turn you on
@CharlieRobloxKerbal *comrade
i will make you set SCE to AUX
I was Privileged to work on the Black Arrow project, designing part of the satellite ground support and digital comms equipment and installing it in a transportable container for Australia. The cancellation of the project after its successful launch still hurts.
Blame Tony Benn.
The USA
“Negotiated” the cancellation
@@rattywoof5259 Why, he wasn't the PM then.
@@gautamnatrajan1990 He never was, but in his cabinet post at the time, he was responsible for the cancellation.
I've seen the Buran twice. First when they brought it to the technical museum on an ship and then 2 years later in the museum and i have to say that its gorgeos. Its just giant and you can't believe, that there are even bigger things going to space, even while you read the facts.
Black Arrow had a R&D budget of £2.5 million per year. That has to be a record in how little to spend to get an orbital vehicle operational. But who can resist the prospect of free space load deliveries.
@Robert Willis Black Arrow was a flawed program from the start, the launch capability was limited and the only orbit you could fly out of Woomera was a polar one to the north. The Ministry of Aviation and Conservative Government basically ok'ed the project to keep Saunders Roe in the rocket business after the Black Knight programme had finished which had been a rocket used to develop warhead re-entry vehicles for the Blue Streak IRBM.
@Robert WillisThat is today, there wasn't a market back then for it. Black Arrow was nearly canned in 1965 before it even flew and was put on ice for a couple of years before the first rocket flew. The upcoming commercial market for satellites in the late 1960's were ones that could operate in geo-sync orbit for telecommunications and weather monitoring. Tony Benn, the Minister of Technology had a big problem, a shortage of money and a shedload of projects that had direct practical befits to the whole UK and not the Space Sector. He had a choice, spend on the launchers or spend on the payloads. He saw a much bigger return on the later so Britain concentrated on the later (and did quite well at it). The US offer included building parts for US Shuttle related items, some of which actually flew. Blue Streak/Europa had the same issues, couldn't put more than a ton into LEO and totally useless for putting any decent sized Comsat into GEO.
The UK has about 5% of the entire space industry these days iirc, which isn't bad for an industry sector that's had no ( UK ) government support at all for most of it's existence. Losing the experience from building a launcher is pretty sad, but unfortunately that's the late 60s/early 70s - any scientist or engineer who wanted a decent career emigrated thanks to the state of the economy & investment at the time. The various governments of the late 50s & the 60s had done their best to strangle development in high-tech engineering areas already ( not helped by the US trying to strangle any competition post WW2 ).
Naively despite growing up with some of my first memories being constant strikes, crippling inflation & worries about brain drain I still tried to go into engineering - extremely glad I made the jump into software instead.
Odysseus Rex both. The Tories sent the resources elsewhere. Labour support for trade unions destroyed Britain's competitiveness
@Robert Willis similar happened to the TSR-2. The story goes all the parts, plans and tooling was destroyed on the signing of the contract for the US to supply the F-111 which I believe was delayed or even didn't happen in the end
Buran really saddens me. Good video, Thanks Tim!
Actually people don’t know this, but the secret full flight tests prove the Buran was actually a huge success. The Russians built it, launched it, and landed it back on the Run way. A fully functional Buran WORKED. I have a picture of the Buran as it is landing on a runway as it came from orbit. Buran program was basically cancelled because the Russian engineering team did not see a future for Space shuttles after the Challenger Disasters. The realized Shuttle designs had secret fatal flaws. Hence program cancelled. But by all means, Buran was a success. Idk how people pronounce it but I say Ber-anne. And Ener-gee-a.
I absolutely love this style of video.
Good!!! There's a lot more coming :)
Everyday Astronaut Hi Tim! :)
@@elizogby Sup
Nigel 100 hi
@@elizogby HI
Rocket's 3rd Law of proposal:
For every proposal there's an
equal amount of cancellations
So that's the infamous rocket equation...
Lol
That's rather conservative in NASA's case, unfortunately. NASP, X-33 VentureStar, etc. All tried to be replacements for the Space Shuttle, but "but my jobs program" happened every time.
Perhaps it would've been better stated as: "For every proposal, there is an equal and opposite counter proposal (cancellation)!
44R0Ndin So true. They even hired the same guys who made the Orbiter to make the SLS
Hey Tim. Keep up the great work, Love from Nepal. People like you and Scott Manley are inspiring our next generation of space nerds many of whom will make giant leaps for mankind. Looking forward to part 2.
PS also enjoying your evolution with you toning down the space suit shtick.
Curious Droid did a very good video on the black arrow. It was much more than just an "expensive" rocket. Then again he does very good videos in general, his one on the Energia and Buran are well worth watching also.
Buran will always be a sad story, especially when paired with the Energia. It was just a much better version of the US Space Shuttle. And actually, the Russians looked into their own solid rocket boosters at first as well for the Buran, after all, NASA's plans were all public, but decided against it in no small part because they thought solid rocket motors were just too dangerous.
Never underrate the Russians. They know *exactly* how to make cars, and so rockets. I'll openly say, no matter how old the vehicles are from the Soviet era, all you need to do is upgrade to NASA's software, and what you have is a perfect launch vehicle. Even for one who lives in Britain, I consistently believe in Russian philosophies of making things. Make something reliable and rugged, with easy upgrades. This is why the Soyuz has been around for 60 years. And as a result of this, three cheers for the Russians!
@@adamp.3739 My favorite comment on that is an outtake from Top Gear on the Lada Riva: "Then there's the engine, which was designed to run on Russian petrol. This had an octane rating of 76, and that's not really petrol. That's spicy water."
yeah let's all applaud their amazing skill at reverse engineering, or if you want to use the real term, stealing other countries technology.
@@SxGaming3390 We did the exact same thing after WWII, taking German engineers like Wernher von Braun and having them build the rockets that eventually took us to the moon.
I do not agree with you. Buran was losing a lot of the RD-170 engines, the central tank and all four accelerators.
While Shuttle lost only hydrogen tank. His boosters landed on parachutes, and his engines - RS-25, he brought back.
Thus, the Shuttle had a greater degree of reusability than the Buran.
As native speaker, i can say that your prononciation is right enough (enErgia, BurAn).
As a clarification, being a native speaker of both languages, it is /boo-RUN/ but the "oo" is short with stress on the second syllable. with Energia, it's more like /eh-NER-gee-yah/ again with stress on the second syllable and a hard G like in egg. Love the channel, you're making a lot of Tim's out there happy to share the name!
As a non-English native, pronouncing a u as yoo is something that only English does.
@@Frahamen Dont blame the language, blame the Vikings Romans, the French who have strongly influenced the development of the language through consecutive invasions.
And now the internet, giving us new phrases like "nowadays" the English way to say it would be: at this time, or today...
Just translate "snow storm" and "energy" to russian using Google translate . There you can trigger the audio pronunciation.
@@timofeipozdeev828In general, yes, but the pronociation of u as yoo is not
ruclips.net/video/UOfYck3J3e0/видео.html
SLS is next
Hope so.
Shame that NASA is forced to re-use all of these old parts just to keep the jobs where they are, instead of getting free reign in starting from a blank slate and designing for a mission rather than for continuous use of existing parts. So many years, so many billions of $ wasted on political and economic corruption... when these engineers are capable of so much more.
It's... such a waste.
@@Yutani_Crayven very well put, and thats the reason chances are it wont get cancelled. Its got a job and it is doing it very well.
Its job is keeping contractors and congressmen happy by keeping them on payroll.
@@thomaswijgerse723 and Deklusjesman I believe NASA knows what they are doing. It really isn't made to be cheap. It is made for people to have jobs. and that's really important for many. They know about BFR (now Starship) and even say it may be better, but remember, NASA has had 60 years of experience. and SpaceX's starship can't be possible without NASA. Elon even says NASA is smart and because of NASA, they can make Starship
Nasa said that if the BFR is successful, the will cancel the SLS.
The irony with Black Arrow is that that the British government decided to invest in Concorde instead, thinking that it was a more commercial venture. The UK could have had an early share in the growing orbital launch market, and with a relatively modest development cost.
And the last "flying" Concorde sits on the roof of the "Technik Museum Sinsheim" witch is no so far from Sinsheim an partner of "Speyer".
You pronounced it allmost perfect, Tim! [bur'ʌn] [ən'ergija]
yes energija. i was 100% sure it was that. it hurt my ears whenever i hear curious droid talking about it.
WOW TECHNOLOGY!!
**[insert year here] later**
This is lame, I’m gonna abandon it.
Oi
Thephantomoftheopera Connor what do you mean oi
0.00000000001 year later
After 9 tests 6 successfully completed 2026
As a Russian space enthusiast, I want to say a big "Spasibo!" to you for such a wonderful review of both Buran and Energia programs. It is indeed a tragic loss for space flight in general that these vehicles never flew again. And it is twice sad that now they can't really be resurrected, now or in the future, as Russia do not have the necessary capabilities and technology anymore.
1:16 black arrow
3:51 buran
7:58 energia
11:13 Ares-1
17:00 ending
The RD-170 has four chambers because they could not fully solve the problems with combustion instability on RD-270.
If it was built the inline version of Energia with eight boosters known as Vulkan would have been the most powerful rocket in the world with a payload of 200 tons which even beats Ares V's proposed payload of 188 tons.
It could have lifted the parts for a crewed mission to Mars in just two launches.
And also there were some planned features on Buran-Energia which are STILL being considered for implementation for future Russian rockets. Think about it, whole 30+ years later and it's still in some regards ahead of the time TODAY.
The Energia rocket story, always makes me Cry.
Yes. I've been waiting for this since you teased this! :D
Buran is honestly just amazing. The Shuttle was nowhere near how good the Buran was in my opinion. Amazing creation and one of the best spaceplanes.
The buran never fired it's engines it did one glide test what are you talking about not to mention they stole a set of prints from the shuttle engineers
@@richierich2534acordig to the video he said it did 2 orbits and vend down how could de return without using the orbital manoeuver engine
Aries I is the most kerbal rocket I've seen lol. Well other than the Atlas V with all the SRB's strapped to it.
I think is far behind one true leader - Ariane 4 with boosters
Nah, the Jupiter III (Yet another Space Shuttle derived launch vehicle) concept takes the cake. So imagine 3 space shuttle tank, line them up like Delta IV Heavy, put the second stage engine beneath the middle tank, then put the first stage engine underneath the 2nd stage engine (feed off from the side tank), then put 4 SRB around the middle tank.
Apparently can launch the Constellation MTV by itself, so...
No, the N1 is by far the most kerbal rocket ever designed
+Charlie Reisner I think only in ammount of engines. No cylindric fuselages, no boosters, no fins, transparent interstates :/
@@juliuszkocinski7478 but every time they tested it, it blew up. Also, their solution to having a payload that was too heavy, they added more boosters
Aries is the only rocket I’ve ever seen launch in person, still was amazing to see at the time.
Ares 1: Haha I'm going to be taking HUMANS!!!
8 years later...
Falcon 9 Crew Dragon: Step Aside sister
Starship : **THE LOOK OF DOMINANCE**
Hail Star ship gonna make one in SFS
Speaking as a Brit this brings a tear to my eye 😓🇬🇧
4:24. I always find it amazing that the soviets/russians lift their rockets and in this case shuttle from horizontal to vertical on the launch pad.
Man i would have loved for the Buran and Energia to have been continued. Apart from having cool names (according to wikipedia Buran means "Snowstorm".....That's badass), they were both such brilliant feats of engineering. Those pics of the destroyed and abandoned Burans really are sad.
Don't forget HRSDM, the Hubble Rescue, Servicing and Deorbit Module. They got as far as acquiring flight hardware from a previously cancelled program as well as a Dextre ground spare in order to accelerate development. It got cancelled after Return to Flight for the shuttle and the placing of SM-4 on the launch schedule. Much of that work led to the Satellite Servicing Projects Division which is launching its third experiment to ISS on the next CRS mission.
Now this I did not know about!!! I’m looking into it now!
Everyday Astronaut A lot of folks at SSPD are from Hubble pre-SM4 and should have the juicy details. I was just a worker bee on the periphery at the time.
Loved this video. The Buran/Energia combo should’ve flown more. No doubt about it. That thing could’ve been what the world desperately needed at the time. We’d be much farther along in our space developments and achievements if this thing became Russia’s workhorse rocket. I am very confident in that statement. And the Lipstick rocket was still pretty cool I think. I hope to go see it one day too. Along with the Buran glider in Germany.
Zachary Fluke - I live quite near where the lipstick rocket is on display. I’d be glad to show you around.
Been looking forward to these forever, glad you finished it.
Energia was a beast to bad the Russians don't retool the design and have a super heavy lift capability in the modern era of spaceflight
The ultimate troll would be if you announced, then cancelled the last video in the series!
(I hope you will mention the russian MAKS spacecraft, and the incredible RD-701 tripropellant engine that was designed for it.)
Thanks for this very informative video Tim! FYI, Buran is pronounced "Booráhn" in Russian, as the U in Russian is more like "oo" in English, and the emphasis is on the "a". Also Energia is simply pronounced "Enérgia" with the emphasis on the second "e" and the "g" is like the one in "Go".
Keep those interesting videos coming!
Heh. "oo" like "moon"? Or "oo" like "book"? ;-)
"oo" like "book"
I was astounded when I learned about the Black Arrow as a kid, and then even more so that it was cancelled. Post-war Britain was utterly broke, and despite the program being extremely cost effective it just caught the bullet the same way Apollo did.
3:20 I've seen it and it's still the only actual rocket hardware I've seen in person. I hope to change that one day
The UK didn't finish paying back WW2 loans from the US until 2006 I think. Meanwhile the US & UK rebuilt Germany & Japan. Funny how the world works sometimes.
@@Karibanu The USA enforced the Marshall plan for Europe and the UK received the biggest share of it.
@@haraldhimmel5687 Yes, a large percentage of that was loans - and the UK had to arrange more loans on top ( and had to arrange things *during* the war too ), and fund post-war activity as a major member of NATO as well as it's own commitments. France was in a similar position but with rather less commitments.
There was a definite lack of proper leadership both before and after the war ( a running theme with Britain anyway ) but 6 years of war with over a year of it more or less alone against two other nations pretty much wrecked what was at the time a a world power, and one that was needed to be a strong one post war. Was in the best interests of the US to make sure the British Empire didn't return to it's previous economic strength though, so prop it up & then make it pay over time. Odd to think given current relative strengths, that in the 1920s there was a serious risk of an Anglo-American war...
Tim, it sounds like this:
Boo run - burán
A nerghia - enérgia
i like how the buran's mission was called "OK" even though it was not OK
@@Mick_92 it died. Hard.
I remember reading about one canceled project that would take the final stage fuel tank, orbit it, and eventually be converted into a small (Skylab size, anyway) space station complete with solar panels and a shuttle docking port.
It's called "wet workshop".
One can pray that SLS joins this list and we only see at most a single billion+ dollar launch from the boondoggle.
Funny you brought up the massive cost of the Constellation program and didn't compare it to SLS. Which was supposed to cost $14-18 billion for overall development and less the $500 million per launch. Now it's ballooned to almost $27 billion spent on its development so far and though we haven't had an official update on cost per launch, estimates have it between $1-2 billion every single time the completely expendable launch vehicle flies.
Can we get a video on this topic of should we cancel SLS and instead fund commercial super heavy lift vehicles instead? Time to seriously explore throwing SLS in the trash so it quits dominating the budget of NASA like the Shuttle used to do.
Add me to the list of “Drop SLS” advocates.
@@michaelrubinstein4088 - must kinda suck working on that, knowing that it is a waste.
Too much words.
@@Mosern1977 what's a waste? The billions upon billions we've wasted on repurposed Shuttle hardware with SLS?
NASA has already confirmed that in case of successful development of the BFR, they will give up the SLS.
But the fact is that BFR is waiting for a long way that will be difficult. He is only at the beginning of development.
For this reason, NASA is still developing SLS.
This is the first time I heard why Ares5 was cancelled. Thanks for the details!
It's a pity they never continued Energija development, especially with the reusability ideas.
I've heard "boo-rahn," and "Ener-gyah" the most often. I love how much you put into your videos man, awesome work.
Nice intro, the last one I most of the time skipped. But this one I watch with a smile 😀
Buran was a payload that delivered payload.
It was extremely expensive and inefficient way to deliver things to orbit.
But Energia was a beast, second only to Saturn V.
THE BLODDY X33 VENTURE STAR WQS SOOOO CLOSE TO FLYING , DAMMIT
Can't help but think we might be seeing SLS on one of these lists some day
Nah
Love your vids, man, just discovered the channel and have been binging hard! keep it up!
I remember seeing the Booster stage of the Black Arrow sitting outside the William Creek Hotel in Outback Australia, along with other rocket hardware that crashed into the dessert. I remember looking at it, and marvelling that this stuff cost millions of dollars to build, then some guy driving around his Cattle Station found it and slung in it the back of his Ute and drove it to the local pub.
These videos are super awesome. Best 19 minutes of the day
There was actually a Energija II planned but unfortunately it never left the drawing board... It was a lot cooler because it was supposed to land it's four boosters AND the rocket itself autonomously using wings!
Great video!
Some weird looking rockets :)
This is how the board meeting for the Aries-1 went like this
NASA head honcho: what will we do with the spare SRBs from the shuttle and all our spare parts from everything else we built?
Head of design: I think we should built a rocket.
NASA head: is it cheap?
Head of design: yes we will just search scrapyards and eBay for parts.
At last. A new, long episode to watch 😍
The Black Arroe looks like the old Missile Pop you could get from an ice cream truck - red on top, white in middle, blue on bottom. Don't know if those are still around because it's been literally decades since I got anything but a headache from an ice cream truck (I had a place near a public park and one would go by 10x a day in summer playing the opening bars of "The Entertainer" on loop).
What's flying, is it a bird, is it a plane? oh, its a russian rocket stage
I was in the speyer museum once, it's great! Everyone near that location should definetly go there!
The Buran is amazing
Greetings from Speyer;)
The rocket was named Prospero by the scientists as a dig at those who cancelled the programme. Prospero was a magician who gave up his magic.
Anyone else watching this after spacex's first launch to the iss
first *crewed launch but somewhat yes :)
Jazzy Lev makes me crazy when people say first launch
Nope. Watching after the Perseverance launch.
Dont you mean first *manned* launch
No joke, Tim, I was driving into work today and thought 'I really hope there's a new Everyday Astronaut video, I could really use one'. Wahooooo! Thanks for everything you do broheim! In a virtual world of garbage, pointless channels, you and yours stand as examples of what the internet could and should be all about. High quality, meaningful entertainment that enriches the mind. Your videos are more than view grabs, they're works of art! Mad respect!
The cursed video is finally out!!!! :p
*t h i c c y o s h i*
This channel's blasting into the stratosphere! I remember when a video was usually
I thought it was a scott manley video. lol. Very nice video, like the style
Kind of reminds me of Curious Droid as well, who makes a lot of "interesting that got canned" type videos.
There was another buran spaceplane that was moved to Gorky Park in Moscow in 1991 or 1992. I took some pictures of a co-worker's kids playing around it. They stripped all of the heat shield tiles off of it and gutted the airframe to make a novelty restaurant for tourists. If its still there, it might be easier to see than the ones at Baikonur.
The Russian alfabet is very easy to learn. Once you know that you just need to read the Russian name. I've learned it in a day. You'd be happy to know that. Love your video's. Greetings.
Cyrillic?
Although I already know all this, it never gets boring hearing about rocket history with great videos and images as a complement.
The Buran is one of the most exciting pieces of space tech to me. I am just so fascinated by its story and I've also seen one of the Prototypes (the OK-GLI (BTS-002)) in person, it is on display quite close to where I live.
I am also fascinated by the fact that to this date there are two orbiters rotting away in an abandoned Hangar somewhere in Russia
Edit: 5:56, yep, that one :D
You must be a happy man now after space x succeeded in sending peeps to the space station. Love your videos
I love your music, and your video's bro. As soon as you said your music was on spotify I immediately went there, Followed and saved everything my friend! I enjoy the content you put out there so keep up the great work. A while back I thought about doing something similar to what your doing now but I had no idea how to go about it. I have enjoyed "Everything Space related" since I was a little boy and I feel like I could offer a lot of insight to this world. What steps did you take in the beginning? Is there any helpful hints?
Someone really should tell the Russians about doing basic maintenance on, well, absolutely everything. That they just leave out in the snow. This is the best video I've seen from this channel,out of MANY great ones. Keep it up!
how does the Energia rocket carry payloads on his side without losing balance ?
i know the shuttle does this with engines but the payloads don't have engines
Most likely the engines of it are angled.
Polyus did have several engines on it's sides, like some really small srb.
@Robert Willis Ok i see
I went to the buran exibit in speyer, It is amazing to see that massive thing
♥ Buran!!
The Buran program wasn't a total loss - it gave us the An-225 transport plane, by several measures the largest plane ever built, and which is still in productive service. Only one has flown, but Wikipedia says that a partially built and then mothballed plane is now in the process of being completed.
Hey can u make a video on ISRO. Their MOM mission and the upcoming mission to moon.
I'm kind of glad that the private sector is getting evolved maybe we'll finally get ahead and start moving forward
Who else is here because of comments from the 1/13/21 Livestream of SN9 Static Fire?
Can’t remember dates, what that the stream where he mentioned a part 3 of this hits 1 million views? I’ve only done 100 so far
The Ares I, now known as the OmegA = awesome. Not only is it simple, it doesn't have a ridiculous number of moving parts, it has an incredible energy density and thrust.
I see u change the Intro..
Love the Falcon Heavy Launch..
Its a Magnificent Beast.
There are tours to Baikonur provided by various tour companies, they are not cheap, but you get to see Buran and other launch sites. You can even plan you trip to see a rocket launch.
Сердце кровью обливается когда такое смотришь
I asked my dentist's Russian receptionist this morning about pronouncing Buran and Energia. She says it's BOO-ron and en-ERG-ia. The 'r' in Booron had a little roll in it. The 'g' in Energia is hard like Garage.
Can you speak about the Hermes from EESA
Hey Tim! If you ever make it out to the San Francisco Bay area, head north to Novato. There you will find a private space collection set up as a mini museum in a strip mall. Inside that museum is the crew hatch from the ONLY flown Buran orbiter. No idea how the owner got it, or how much he paid. Almost sad really, it's sitting in the back, in a corner on the ground, totally accessible to kids, etc!
Achieved, then abandoned
2:46 LOL
That's totally Kerbal right there with the glitchy gimbals. Must fix SAS !
Yesss! I can take you so much more seriously without that darn spacesuit on!!
That’s exactly what I was gonna say
It is a bit weird how Buran could fly completely autonomously, while AN-225 that was built to move it around, needed 6 people to operate. While newer 747's built in mid 80's had enough automation for only two pilots to fly them.
The Black Arrow
Also known as the flying lipstick
The Ares I is an awesome rocket. A huge, solid first-stage. Everyone's doing it.
16:10 we have now...
There is a Black Arrow rocket on display in the Science Museum in London! you should visit they have the Apollo 10 Capsule there a Soyuz capsule and a mock-up the ESA's and JAXA's BepiColombo spacecraft! I'd love to finally meet you!
Im glad india started its space agency early!!! Now we are almost self sufficient to launch all our satellites.... Now britons cry about aid given by them to Indian ngos like they r doing any favours to Indians!!! Post brexit im sure britons will be glad not to hv space agency!!! 😁
Don't worry about the UK, we have a space agency. The construction of a commercial space centre has also been approved on the north coast of Scotland. We're also, and will continue to be, members of the European Space Agency.
Greedy Capitalist dont spend money on space!!! Instead feed ur poor.. 😁😁😂 there are 14 million poor in uk according to UN.. peace 😂😂😂
@@deepakfornever I don't know which definition of poverty you're going off, but rest assured we're not starving to death here - obesity is more of a problem. In any case, if you want to help "the poor", the best way is to provide opportunities for business and employment - and the space industry is a good place to invest, being as it's one of the few industries that continued to grow through the Great Recession.
Deepak Kumar coming from India, really?
Delta III is another one. I worked on Delta III. In parallel with Delta III, Delta IV preliminary design was going on to win the future EELV contract. Boeing won a good portion of EELV and Delta IV went forward into production.
Delta III had a launch failure in its 1st launch, an issue with its Aerojet RL-10 on its second flight but did have a successful launch of a dummy payload on its third launch. Then it was cancelled and replaced by Delta IV. However many of the Delta III products like upper stages and fairings were used on Delta IV. Delta III utilized a lot of composites and provided an experience base in designing composite launch vehicle structures to Delta IV.
The knowledge gained by all of us on the Delta III design team that switched to Delta IV provided good launch vehicle development experience to the Delta IV team.
That’s already on part II!!! It’s been shot even!
220th! I love your videos Tim!!!!
Just a little info for you, the old B&W footage of lorry carrying the rocket was I believe not of the desert launch sit in Australia, but shot in the Isle of Wight on south coast of England , which was where they static fire tested the engines.
Gotten, then garbage
Really enjoyed this theme. I've always been interested the unrealized concepts of space hotels - would be a cool video to watch 🤓
#CancelSLS -- divert the funds to Elon.
Time to axe the shuttle factory welfare fund and put it where it will be used effectively
We should keep the governments fingers as far away from the BFR as we can. We've seen how NASA paperwork and fear of risk-taking has helped slow the pace of Commercial Crew, and once they get in on the project they will start asking for 'small' changes that add years to the timeline.
@@TheOneWhoMightBe Yes, because we should take risks with human lives. And you probably criticize the space shuttle for the same thing?
@@wheresmycar9559 Literally everything we do involves some level of risk; it's all about the level we are prepared to accept. NASA's attitude used to be arguably far too lax (see Shuttle), now it has swung the other way (at least when it comes to USA launch vehicles). And to a point you can understand it, because if a (US) vehicle fails and kills crew, a whole bunch of people in NASA get very publicly dragged over hot coals.
As for the Shuttle itself, that thing was a wonderful piece of engineering that was also a death trap. NASA's safety attitude at the time compounded the risks by ignoring screaming warning signs again and again and again. And they put crew on the first flight. NASA makes some amazing probes but their mannned program has atrophied and turned inwards.
@@TheOneWhoMightBe Well, yes, all of spaceflight is incredibly risky; however NASA is not trying to delay the commercial crew program out of spite like you made it sound in the original comment. NASA has been in the manned-flight game for many years and have had many people die due to small errors that at first were simply overlooked and ignored. They are trying to make sure SpaceX and ULA get it right the first time so that they don't have their reputation smeared. Well, I should say ULA's reputation smeared as to most SpaceX can do nothing wrong.
Regardless, the thought process around the shuttle disasters are likely to reappear, especially in the commercial side of spaceflight where every day extra of a delayed flight is a day without profit. NASA is just trying to get rid of the bad habits before they start.
@@wheresmycar9559 I'm not suggesting NASA is trying to delay out of spite; I said it was the result of paperwork and fear. From my POV out here the NASA safety culture has swung from 'I don't care what the actual engineers say, launch it anyway' to 'don't launch if there's even the slightest risk' (and as you say, spaceflight is dangerous, so there's no such thing as risk-free).
Re smearing reputations, ULA's reputation is unlikely to be smeared: they provide *extremely* reliable launch vehicle but they do so at a high cost. SpaceX might be more likely to be 'smeared' because they're the 'risk-taking young upstart and this was always going to happen' etc. I think NASA is more trying to cover their own behind rather than ULA/Boeing's or SpaceX's, since they're running oversight over the program (which is probably why, publically, NASA basically shrugs their shoulders when Roscosmos has a failure: not our job) and a LOV/C would be a nightmare for their administration.