What is your opinion of the United States doing everything in their power to restart the Cold War? It's just a cynical attempt to extend the military industrial complex because that scam is so profitable for so many.
@@fuzzywzhe I'm also Russian (though, I sometimes work for US and I can tell that there are a lot of russian engineers who do, and this is about very complex things, so I think russian engineers are cool) and I think that Russia is unable to take competition anymore, sadly. Russia is very different from USSR. My opinion is that our government is totally disabled and cannot and doesn't even try/want to satisfy neither science, nor engineering skills russian engineers offer.
@@eggrevolver As a Canadian-Ukrainian, I hope the USSR comes back. (Judging by current events, and what led to the USSR in the first place, it is almost inevitable.)
@@walterbrunswick USSR also had lots of drawback. I'd rather want to have a country which is something more than USSR, something modern. A confederation of nations maybe with only good ideas borrowed from USSR.
While it may suck that Buran only flew once, what sucks even more is that Energia was cancelled. That rocket was almost as powerful as thing like BFR and the SLS. So sad ;-(
With that much power, you could achieve with multiple lunches, 2-3, assembly of a big rocket for interplanetary transport, just imagine having this vehicle 30 years ago ... things could've been way different.
if there is need pretty sure they can reactivate it. as for buran seems there are better ways for recovery vehicles... wonder about cargo recovery thou
A nuclear thermal powered interplanetary space tug. Or use it to assemble a 1 million ton space station in just a few years. It was efficient per kg, reusable, and had a colossal payload capacity. That is exactly what SLS and BFR are trying to reinvent. Should just buy the Later Energia design blueprints from Russia. It was a MAJOR cost improvement on the Saturn V.
I’m a proud American- but I get really annoyed when I hear other american’s disregarding their enemy’s achievements- especially in space. the human accomplishment of space travel was amazing. The fact that the soviets built a fully autonomous rocket and glider is amazing.
Patrick's Music Just like UK/French designed Concorde. The Soviets stole copies of the Concorde. In any case, both the Russian copies of the Shuttle and Concorde were bodged and never made it.
And the fact that it genuinely was superior from a payload and safety perspective. Buran simply was a better design. I don't think anybody with a serious knowledge of the shuttle program could deny that. And the sad thing is, the existing shuttles could have easily been converted to a Buran-style launch system, except NASA had stopped innovating back in the 1980's and were content to keep launching astronauts on top aging deathtraps.
Whats mind boggling is that in the 1980s they not only made a computer that could easily fit inside of the shuttle, but it had an AI that could control the ship autonomously and make decisions on its own. That was a marvel of creation by itself.
Soviets beat us to space and probably would’ve done far more than that had they had the financial backing we had. They’re highly intelligent, skilled engineers.
Imagine if the geniuses of the two rivaling space programs were allowed to combine their ideas and funds. Humanity could have started colonizing Mars by now!
True....very true .... If we (politicians) can only stop the bullshit about being the City on the Hill or promoting exceptionalism it will remove the obstacles to cooperation
Se hizo un buen transbordador y no sirvió ni para museo.Toda la culpa es del régimen comunista , que cayo en bancarrota total , por querer seguir a los americanos.
@@fernandomartinezrivera7283 Ese es un buen punto. Pero lo mismo pasó con el X-33 en América. Los políticos se pusieron en medio y echaron a la basura años de trabajo... una pena en realidad, porque la tecnología espacial debería estar fuera del alcance de la burocracia estúpida que por un berrinche puede echar abajo el trabajo de muchas personas...
However is it not competition that drives innovation, in a world where there is no competition for superiority we have no industrial revolution, no power systems and certainly no flight or rocket technology; we may have peace and love however
@@CH-pv2rz It wasn't abandoned as such; the country that built it imploded one year after the first launch. They were barely able to keep MIR going (with Sergei Krikalev at one point staying on MIR, his two comrades returning to earth. That way SK could maintain MIR, but without any means of returning to Earth. He had to hope that a new Soyuz would arrive to allow him a return. They did eventually, but no guarantee. Very brave man. The only human to date to be effectively stranded in space. Anyway, had the USSR survived, Buran would have had a different story.
The fact that the USSR had the technology to lift Energia up to space and then make it land without any pilots controlling it blew my mind! Landing automatically on the Moon is one thing but landing automatically on the freaking Earth is another. If you are asking, the later is 100 times harder due to the existence of more gravity and ... an actual atmosphere.
Why is this surprising to you? After all, the father of all unmanned vehicles is the Soviet engineer Kemerjan. He not only created unmanned vehicles in the USSR, but also advised the Americans on this. And if you would have known that the modern computer processors Intel and Intel Pentium, which were used all over the world, were based on the Soviet processor. As well as a cell phone and the first personal computer that we know, it was also created much earlier than in USA, in addition, it is also patented.
Soviet opted for automatic flight because they feared that the pilot could escape and land the Buran in western country... It was with same with Gagarin 1st flight. It was automatic. Nasa never did automatic flight cause, american never thought than pilot can escape to Soviet country.
To be honest, the Buran-Energia looks like a better system than the Shuttle, with a better and more flexible architecture. Its fate was a tragedy. And, oh, I would have loved so much to see a fully reusable Energia II with gliding boosters.
@@iLoveBoysandBerries Buran rocked. It just so happened that USSR went broke else it would have had many missions and mankind would have a better foothold in space.
Upu are full of 💩. The Buran flew once, with no crew, and with a non-reusable rocket to do it. It was a huge waste of money and would have never been successful. It was the money pit of all money pits...
Actually that could be pretty easily fixed. Maybe a few months of work and it would be as good as new. Remember it’s older technology so it would be a cinch. They could have this thing in orbit by November
@@CH-pv2rz Oh yeah, nothing new there, that's exactly how the "glorious" american shuttle worked, dumbass. Main tank and booster were never reused. Aside from buran, Energia was a proper launcher by itself.
I cant imagine how it must have felt being one of those workers who built the Buran and seeing it destroyed like that. So much time and money wasted, truely heart breaking sight. Rip workers who were killed in the roof collapse.
During the time that Buran flew the Soviet Union was still heavily secret in it space missions; they very much wanted to make sure that if they failed, it would not be widely known. At least not on display for all to see, that would have been too embarrassing for the Soviets. Their missions were typically not even announced until after they had ended successfully. If those missions failed, they were usually not even mentioned. So when a lot of the documentaries about the US space shuttle were made, very little was known about Braun to include, at that time. It wasn't until the fall of the USSR that much of their space program came to light.
Omg. What have they been telling you. Do you know the first American in space didn't even orbit the earth? But hey, they still call him an ass-tronaut.
I did my grade 10 science project on Buran in 2005. No one in the room had ever heard of it. Of course I had to use the Shuttle as a comparison for people to understand the difference and, to be honest, it's superiority. Such a shame it never lived up to it's potential.
Fernando Romera why are they dead now all of them. Sure they do not have the money but the technology the knowledge and the engineers behind all of this are all pretty much alive.
+Fernando Romera True, those were Soviet engineers, not just Russian. But now Russian engineers are still showing what they can do with the newest country's military products, while all other former USSR republics can no longer develop and manufacture any high tech production. The late Soviet elites there have used the nationalism card to take the USSR apart, what resulted in a great regress to all of its republics and was irreversible to all of them but Russia which by now is as big or bigger than united Germany in terms of GDP in PPP values.
Such a spectacular work of engineering, with a terribly tragic ending. I'm glad other rockets were able to benefit from the knowledge Buran brought into this world and I hope that knowledge continues to help humanity as we enter a new space age.
Yuriy The loader You are a stupid person! The energy of Buran brought to the world a lot of new technologies that the whole world uses today. And it is military development that gives progress to the world. Earlier, the Soyuz rocket7 was also Military, and what? Now it benefits the world. Teflon was invented for military purposes, now it benefits in the civil sphere. How do you like the submarine Zototaya Rybka? Thanks to this, the USSR and now Russia is the only country in the world that is capable of producing huge parts and producing various welding of high-strength Titan. Even the American aircraft lockheed sr-71 blackbird was built from Russian titanium purchased in the USSR. Today many details of Boeing and Airbus are produced in Russia from Russian titanium
You are stupendously ignorant of the history of space exploration. You lack the depth of knowledge to even form and opinion, as your positions are all entirely based on insanely stupid (and misplaced) nationalism and hated and a WILD inferiority complex. Yuriy The loader is correct. You are a completely ignorant IDIOT.
Slavs rock. You just tend to have the misfortune of having not great governments. I'm currently looking for a way to get my hands on a Buran Energia model, because it really is something that should not be forgotten.
OMG!!!! I just went home from "Technik Museum Speyer" here in Germany, where I saw one of the Buran shuttles (actually "Speyer's shuttle" is seen in 3:05 !!!) just to see you uploaded a video about them today!!! I'm freaking out right now! :D
Lunatic Cringe No, it was a coincidence :D ...oh, it's just some pigments, sorry if that disappoints you. I'm studying to become a conservator :) Edit: Sorry, had to change my pic! :D
Soviet economic was not actually "socialist", more like concentration camp economic. That allowed to transfer huge resources on something like space program.
How much more stuff would we have put into space by now if we didn't also have to put up a big heavy glider and dead engines that would then need to be completely rebuilt after each mission?
"all socialist economies are concentration camps economies" - all, really? Like Scandinavia? France? By US standards they are worse than socialists - communists. USSR never were socialists or communists. Small group of terrorists-radicals that used popular in society ideas to get to power. They never delivered anything they promised. Even pure fascist Mussolini made more for people of Italy.
It has been said that the system that landed Buran autonomously was the greatest feat of software engineering. There were several brilliant innovations in this one.
That Energia II looks really cool. NASA had messed with the idea of flyback boosters before, too. There was a plan for a flyback F1 booster stage and also plan to replace the shuttle's SRBs with Liquid Rocket Boosters (LRBs) that would have wings and fly back to a runway using jets. Ultimately we had to wait for the Falcon 9 to see anything that cool.
Helium Road Well the Russians could always revive the Energia II with modern tech and shit. It's a cool concept. And I imagine it would work far more better than the the American SLS which is just I'm a constant stage of development for years and years. There is going to be a huge need for massive heavy lift vehicles soon. I don't think everyone is going to buy SPACE X as impressive as they are.
The Raging Storm the problem with old but successful rockets is that the people who know how to build & operate them are no longer around. Instead of having multiple new rocket scientist try to recreate another engineers design, it's more reliable to ask them to build a new system of their own design. Same reason the Russians had to build this rocket in the first place. Because the guy who designed it died.
True, but building a modern improved version of rockets like the Energia or even the Saturn V is not technically difficult; both vehicles are well-documented and have successful flight history and data, and there are even existing examples to physically inspect. NASA even has a raft of fresh never-used F1 engines in storage. The hardest part is funding, bureaucracy, institutional inertia, public perception, etc.
Actually, the unused F1 engines were pretty much divided up among various museums and displays. On the other hand, they DID start an effort to design and build an upgraded F-1B engine for use as a liquid booster on the SLS a few years back, but after doing some preliminary testing of subassemblies and some 3D printed parts, the project seems to have gone dark for the past few years, since NASA announced that they were going to use solid boosters for the foreseeable future. It's a shame because the F1 is the most powerful single chamber rocket engine ever built, and the F-1B was going to be even more powerful thanks to new engineering.
I wonder if those LRBs would have needed as much refurbishment as NASA's SRBs; It's one of the reasons why the STS' reusability was pretty much a moot point. The ET still lost and a maintenance-heavy shuttle didn't really help either.
Energia II is still on paper and even though it will look cooler than any LEO rocket made by the US, sadly there is no promise given other than an idea to resurrect the project. Russian engineering favor now falls into next-generation Soyuz rocket (Soyuz 5) which is more modular than Energia.
@Boarlaw Attorneys At Law putin ran the freaking country into the ground both economically and politically and thus, scientifically. are you an effin bot?
What a sad story :(. Imagine if they had a blanc check maybe even international cooperation on this project... instead here we are, lecturing american truck drivers the earth is not flat.
91plm Not a bad idea if politics didn’t exist but suppose the Americans had just paid the ruskis to develop version 2. Mad dog kleptocrat Putin would have pulled the plug and had won the space race while the Americans would have gotten a huge egg on the face - again.
vondahe what?... average wage of Russian now is 500$ as a maximum - per month. National GDP is lower than Turkish one. Those engines are a little answer to a huge amount of import pushed into Russia and creating many debts for people. Hope they understand it later or will work for 500$ more and more.
I once saw one of the Buran at display in the German museum in Speyer and I could not hold back my tears wheb I stood next to it. So much engineering effort achieved such a great vehicle, but was never put to any use. The tragedy sinply is simply overwhelming 😢
Wow I never knew there was so much to the Buran program! I always heard on space history channels about “the failed Buran program” but I never knew they had successful flights and invented their own technology!
Same here while I was aware it had some advanced autonomous systems for the time I never knew it could land completely unmanned, I'm not sure commercial aircraft of this day with their advanced pilot assistance are capable of unmanned landings rally puts into perspective of what the Soviet engineers acheived with mid-late 80s computer technology
They only had one flight and it was without a crew. The USSR was good at copying other countries ideas and putting their own spin on things but it usually did not end up working out. The Buran and the Tupolev Tu-144 (Russian Concorde) are two prime examples of this, neither programs ever became fully operational.
@@wetlettuce4768 It is even more amazing that soviet computer hardwere technology is much worse than the west, they had to make the softwere extreamly optimized. Auto landing on aircraft is nothing new in 1980s tho.
I’ve had the same experience. I don’t recall ANY of the documentaries I’ve seen on American TV EVER MENTIONING THE FACT THAT THE RUSSIAN SHUTTLE MADE IT INTO ORBIT. That is a key point to the story. Censorship through omission is still censorship. Thanks MSM.... again.
@@CheekyMonkey1776 It was all over the news back then, comrade Monkeesovitch. American media are NOT russian media. Why would they censor the result of a vulgar knock-off of an American concept and technology ?
The unbelievable thing is that there were atmospheric test flights of Buran prototypes, equipped with the 4 jet engines and they took off like normal planes! I discovered the footage just recently and couldn't believe my eyes that this "flying brick" ,as the Americans called their space shuttle, could not only just land but take off on its own! Or maybe only the Russian version could :)
Tom, that’s not true at all. Not only could the Buran not “take off under its own power”, Soviet engineering of this vehicle was sad which is why it never flew in space. The breakup of the USSR really had little to do with that. Poor engineering had much more to do with it.
@There's No God You'd think wrong. I am quite familiar with the history of the space program from the 70s forward, as I lived it. I remember the 80s very well. I was an adult at that time. I am also a Solar System Ambassador for NASA/JPL, so I have a little insight on these things. Everything Tom T. said about the Buran is wrong. Even a google search would reveal to you that not only could the Buran not take off under its own power, but that it was a "dinosaur", poorly engineered. The breakup of the USSR had nothing to do with the cancellation of the program. Roscosmos was not affected by the breakup. It was business as usual. Conduct a little research on this subject.
@There's No God Lol. No, they are not, because it NEVER happened. But you go right on believing that if you want. I was just trying to deliver some factual information to you, but I can see that you are not interested in such things. You go right on believing this and other conspiracy theory garbage all day. No sweat off of my back. I'm sure the aluminum foil companies must make a killing off of gullible people like yourself. Have a nice day.
Honk Honk >> Good comment. Reasons to invest in space are plenty. There’s the serendipitous effects. A considerable amount of modern technologies like microprocessors, Velcro, and ICU telemetry come from the space program. Then there’s getting all of humanity off of the one rock.
Were any of you alive at the time? I was, and I remember on television the Sabre rattling and belligerence of US - USSR and the fear of total nuclear destruction. It was real. It was palpable.
@@tristunalekzander5608 they are in fact last year they exported more agricultural than weapons, their agro growth was 20% back in 2014 when they got sanctions they started growing their agro by 2016 they surpassed Soviet era grain production if you like take a look at this analysis from the duran a UK news outlet about Russian economy and how they manage to generate immunity to sanctions and in fact adapted their economy and got ahead ruclips.net/video/06cdlU1iwIQ/видео.html
one pick up truck / shuttle , two , just get there cheap , many examples , three heavy lift , Saturn V , and the updates , we only need one reliable design in each of 3 categories , rockets are like ladders ,
I learnd a lot from this video. I'm happy to see Russa got a sucessful mission, and saddened there ended up not being more competition amung shuttle progrmas. I feel a healthy dose of competition would have spurred innovation even further. Who knows what we could have had by today.
No, it was more competitive. But in any case, dear. The USSR was ruined. Although the project is not officially closed. By the way, the concept, like the appearance, was invented in the USSR not in the United States.
In the USSR, as in Russia, there were many different shuttles that were tested and are now also available. This shuttle was developed in the mid-60s (before the Shuttle) and a full-scale test mock-up was built in 1980. 2.bp.blogspot.com/-5RCFGZNEr9A/UlLavjHV8aI/AAAAAAAAayY/Li3IwWrDAE0/s1600/%25D1%2587.jpg The Spiral,Bor4 and Epos system (1960s), then what the US is issuing for its shuttle universetoday-rus.com/_bl/8/99712424.jpg www.buran.ru/images/jpg/bor4-1.jpg testpilot.ru/russia/molniya/bor/img/bor4ber1.jpg www.lib.podelise.ru/tw_files2/urls_19/3/d-2509/2509_html_4a645d11.jpg q-zon-fighterplanes.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Mikoyan-Gurevich-MiG-105.11.jpg fea.ru/spaw2/uploads/images2/News_Fea%20Kvasova/%D0%9C%D0%B8%D0%B3-105_11.jpg www.mos.ru/upload/newsfeed/newsfeed/bor4.jpg Here is the Max system- This is another shuttle mirrors.pdp-11.ru/_misc/www.buran.ru/images/jpg/maxokb.jpg www.buran.ru/images/jpg/max_akk.jpg www.buran.ru/images/gif/max_os-p.gif mirrors.pdp-11.ru/_misc/www.buran.ru/images/jpg/maxokb2.jpg mirrors.pdp-11.ru/_misc/www.buran.ru/images/jpg/maxvtb2.jpg mirrors.pdp-11.ru/_misc/www.buran.ru/images/jpg/maxvtb1.jpg Multipurpose transport spacecraft "Hurricane" buran.ru/images/jpg/ura_111.jpg Weight: 500 tons First flight: December 17, 1995 (unmanned), April 19, 1999 (manned. Reusable spaceship Clipper sam-celitel.ru/_nw/39/40411247.jpg ca0.ru/main/Cliper02.gif vremena.takie.org/_nw/1/47290813.jpg kosmos-x.net.ru/_nw/15/13216087.jpg system=М-55-С-XXI techno-science.net/illustration/Espace/Ansari_X_Prize/C21/351_large.jpg old.computerra.ru/pubimages/35997.jpg nackosmos.ru/wp-content/uploads/4.jpg МРУ "Baikal" svo.spb.ru/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/117.jpg www.arms-expo.ru/upload/iblock/0d1/0d122451d481158c296cdb0a88cc5348.jpg Also there are many other created projects As for the project Energia Buran. That was built 2 shuttles for space and 4 test. The second shuttle for space with the test shuttle is located in the hangar on baikanur. The competition was not only between the USSR and the United States. BUT and within the USSR.
Fall off USSR was very bad for space nerds all across the world..not just because off USSR but because off competition with USA ...many great engineers went jobless... SpaceX is now only light in the tunnel
@ antred11 Probably not that much, seeing as the space race was basically over. Hell, maybe we gained more from partnership of agencies in question, as limited as it may be (which is a real bugger).
I wonder if would we have already been to Mars by now if the Soviet Union never fell as the US would have built their own heavy lift vehicle in response to Energia and a full RLV in response to Energia II? In someways the US started to fall as well after the collapse of the Soviet Union as with out with out a rival to compete against it became lazy and sloppy. Investing less in science and becoming less progressive.
@@MrEtovam Нет конечно - никаких миллионов не заплатили. Только жигули, дачка в подмосковье, профсоюзная путевка в Сочи раз в два года и электричество по 4 коп за киловатт. Но потом Березовский и Чубайс все выплатили, до копейки. Мешками деньги к КБ подвозили. Сейчас Навальный каждый месяц по 3000 евро приплачивает.
I visited star city in russia and while visiting I saw a Buran shuttle in moscow in the all-russian exhibition centre. Then I visited the cosmonaut training centre in which we had a look at the training modules for the ISS and in that same hall they had the cockpit from a Buran just sat in the corner
I got to see Buran at the Paris Air Show in 1989. It was mounted on top of the six-engined carrier aircraft. It was an amazing sight to see. By the way, Polyus (Полюс) is pronounced Pole-You-S (soft s sound), not Paul-Ee-Us.
I was amazed when I was told (by an air traffic controller, appropriately) that the carrier aircraft, called, I believe "Mria" the Russian for dream, was the only one in existence, and unlike the NASA SCAs, was purpose-built rather than being converted from a standard airliner. Does anyone know if it is still in existence, and if it is, what is it used for?
Awesome narration of a long forgotten story. It almost brings me to tears thinking of the water potential in the Russian shuttles and all that technology going to waste... also to demonstrate Glushko’s work, who should have succeeded Koryolov. Great work
Nowadays in Russia it's all seems like a ruins of a great ancestors civilization. It's quite sad to watch all those milestones of mankind are just covered in dust, regardless of other USSR positives or negatives.
@@Destinedtobegreat89 It can be done again, but it would require a very large amount of good will and cooperation, and I believe that they don't have enough of either at the moment.
Buran was an amazing project for us. If you are interested in how things are going with BURAN now, be sure to watch this video. ruclips.net/video/nfOFFn7y84M/видео.html
@@LordOfPanzers was closed in 50-s when stalin died. I wonder how long this stupid stereotype will live in the minds of uneducated people who do not know history from the word at all
What an informative video, Curious Droid. I gotta say, you have done a lot of work and research to upload videos like this. Thank you for sharing your Space Knowledge with us, thank you.
It's a shame how it was discovered that the crew was probably still alive and aware of their plight on their journey towards the ocean for what 2 minutes? I think a simple parachute would have saved them
Just because the state hated the political opposition does not mean they didn't care about their people, especially intelligent, educated, skilled astronauts. The problem with totalitarian regimes is not that they don't care for human life, but that they tend to see their enemies as less than human and treat them accordingly (through that mostly applies to the Stalin era, the 1980s were very mild and liberal in the USSR by comparision and the state tolerated some dissent). I'm from Slovakia and I know that for example food processing machines from Czechoslovakia circa 1980 were used to make baby food in France and other Western European countries, because they actually EXCEEDED the safety norms of most Western countries. The myth of USSR and Warsaw Pact not caring about their citizens needs to die. The problem with these regimes it was that they thought people who opposed them were not "real citizens".
Im british and got nothing against russians but you must admit your country does make shite copys of western things like your concorde lol now this space shuttle pmsl
@@stephenastbury6382 I'm from the U.S. and I can tell you don't underestimate the Russians capability, they make amazing tech at a fraction of the cost of western aircraft.
@@tyberious3023 well i can only say what ive seen,there version of concorde was a joke,there aircraft carrier is a bag of rusty spanners and took out by a crane lmfao. The thing i will give the russians is the man power at there disposal though,thats there strength
@@stephenastbury6382 " is the man power at there disposal" - the population of Russia is 150 millions. It's half of USA population, less than 1/3 of EU population and is just 2.5 larger than UK population. I'm eager to hear anything about the UK space program though.
@@OlegLecinsky why would britain waste its money trying for a space programme,Russia tried keep up with the US in the space programme and buying weapons and nearly bankrupted themselves,thats why the US did it lol
If I were a billionaire, I would love to bring the Energia (and maybe Buran) back to life - give it an updated design with newer parts from current Russian launchers, make modifications if possible to allow a Falcon style powered landing, and then this new Buran-Energia 2.0 could be a fully reusable heavy launcher filling a role of a lighter BFR. That would give even more competition in the space industry, and might (but also might not) be quicker and cheaper than building a new vehicle from scratch. Multiple versions of the Buran could be developed for multiple purposes - like a crew-only version capable of carrying many passengers, a fully automated resupply and fuel tanker version to resupply the ISS, future space stations, BFR upper stage, and other Buran vehicles. An automated sattelite-launch version could be the first fully-reusable heavy launch system if developed quicker than the BFR or F9 with reusable upper stage. An expendable or reusable Energia with a simple lightweight expendable upper stage could be a good super-heavy launch vehicle, launching half a large space station in one go, or launching more conventional space habitat modules to farther afield locations such as Lunar orbit, Lunar surface, Lagrange points and more. It might be harder than designing anew from scratch, as discussed in Curious Droid's latest video about the F1 engine, but it also might be easier and cheaper than developing - say - the New Glenn or BFR. The more commercial competirion, the better IMO. It's such a shame this great launch vehicle was wasted. Instead we were stuck with the outdated and limited capability Soyuz and Proton (though the Soyuz is a fine rocket, it is ancient and cannot do much), the expensive and equally limited capability Delta IV and Ariane V, and the capable but horrendously expensive Shuttle. Luckily commercialised space is saving us from this mess, but the Energia and Buran could have been a great stepping stone and been decades sooner. Even today, an updated Energia (with or without, but preferably with, Buran) could compete pretty well with upcoming commercia heavy launch vehicles and the SLS.
RedButtonProductions the design was a dead end they couldn’t get anything to work reliably due to its complexity. The shuttle was ok, the launch vehicle was a disaster.
I didn't know that Buran actually flew into space on an Energia rocket, and that it was able to fly automated. A sad story, but a really good and informative RUclips video!
@@Melkor54 Don't waste your time with USsupremacist trolls. They even claim that it never did the atmospheric flights and that it could take off and land on its own.
@Tony Stark all the space shuttles had damaged tiles on reentry, every one. lol...stolen plans, they are 2 completely different vehicles, the russian was the superior design...btw, it completed 14 orbits.
@Tony Stark it was never designed to have main engines, the delta wing was dimensionally different from the space shuttle and yes...it did what the space shuttle never could.
I've been waiting so long for someone to make a comprehensive Energia Buran video. Thank you to your community for voting for this as a video topic and thank you to you for making it! :) Such a shame the Energia and its proposed derivitives never came to be.
@@jstenberg3192 Not true at all haha. Other than Glushko and Chelomei, who never identified as Ukrainian themselves, who else was ethnically Ukrainian? Let me guess - Korolev? Who had a Russian mother and studied/lived inside Russia his entire life?
@@jstenberg3192 It looks like: some rocket is not american, best part of it is Texasian and other ones is Columbian and rest is Wisconsinian. Stupid? So it is.
Penzija Mirovinić Paul said in the video that it was a copy and that saved the Soviets engineers time and to improve on a proven design. Besides it looks the same,.
I think the problem with "just a copy" is that it creates a misconception that Buran was just a knockoff instead of an improved derivative. Shame it never got anywhere
Penzija Mirovinić Both governments in their competition made great advances in space exploration. "The Chief Engineer" was indeed a genius. The United States had a genius in Dr. Robert Goddard, but our government and military ignored and shunned him. Despite giving them all his patents the US military wanted to fight wars the way they already had. Germany amateur rocketeers who admired Goddard build rockets enthusiastically, and in the next war built the V1 and V2 rockets. The U.S.S.R. government concerned that the US would gain the high ground (wisely) pulled Sergei Korolev out of a Siberian concentration camp and into its space program. Von Braun and his peers took great risk and effort to surrender to the Americans, and offer their services. Despite their talents and accomplishments the US government put them on the back burner. Had it not been for the U.S.S.R. and President Eisenhower the United States would probably not have entered the Space Age. Had Goddard's offer been accepted and developed the United States would probably would have led the world by decades. Instead we played catch up, again and again. I see a similar US attitude and situation in regard to robotics today. The country with the most resources does the least with what it has.
Michael Hartman I agreed until that last sentence. With regards to your second to last sentence, some people have that view but most importantly some don't and they are the reason robotics in the USA advances. Look at advanced manufacturing in the USA, it's done by robots...
It's sad that mere ideologies could get in the way of advancing human technological progress. Can you imagine what could've been if the US and USSR had put aside their differences and worked together? Columbia may not have been, especially with an unmanned Buran sent to rescue the crew. The ISS could have been leaps and bounds more advanced and huge than it is now. Energia's huge payload meant that space construction could really be taken to the max. Hell, we'd probably be able to construct huge space arks by now. Something that's impossible now due to weight restrictions of current rockets. Forget Mars, with those we'd be reaching the outskirts of the solar system by now. Similarly, a moonbase would not be out of the question. Getting crap off this planet has been major issue thus far, that may not have been.
Whitout competiton we we still been thinking about many todays technology. Cooperation is nice idea but just idea whitout any incentive to work in reality. You need will and real cost/effect calculation.
The US needs a new governance system. These sociopaths in the military industrial media complex with their police surveillance state can't keep up their empire and have their kickbacks too. It disgusts me. To the extent I am a patriot, somebody has to call them out.
We weren't about to work with a bunch of dirty fucking communists. Working with Russia today is a different story, they're no longer dirty fucking communists.
If all countries cooperated money and science. Sweden, Israel, Australia, South Africa, Brazil, Norway, France, Canada, USA, Russia, China, Iran, India others...money materials and science.
Meh. Without Hate and Fear and War, there would never be Any scientific progress at all. Simple Fact. Necessity pushes invention, and there is no more urgent necessity than to survive by KILLING those trying to kill you. Moon rockets were STUPID. Only ICBMS mattered. There is NOTHING TO COLONIZE in space, it is a wasteland, waste of time and money to explore.
To know that the first concept of reusable autonomous rocket boosters were laid down by Russian's is not surprising. They were the 1st in space exploration, pioneers in rocket engine technology and produced countless new concepts of deep space exploration. The scientists were motivated by competition but all things ended in vain. Lesson Learned... "Politics and Engineering Sciences don't mix together".
without realizing it you're being quite naive, the old soviets did 'everything' for pure propaganda while their engineering was years behind the west, naturally you'll assume this is sour grapes or such when the reality is everything I just stated (and more) is found in the Kamanin diaries, this was a journal kept from one of their top managers from around 1960 to the early 70's, even they knew the Americans were years ahead of them while acknowledging that because their "firsts' were strictly for propagandic value very little of the real work needed to get to the moon was ever done
Mighty Saturn 5 Sorry... you are mistaken. Of all the accomplishments in the space race, America was only first in one. USSR had the first satellite, animal in orbit, man in orbit, woman in orbit, spacewalk, first craft on the moon and on another planet (Venus) and on Mars, and the first space station, and is the only country to have completed a manned transfer from one space station to another. Sadly, the only thing we Americans accomplished first was landing a man on the moon, and this was chosen explicitly for propaganda purposes as the USSR was focusing its space program elsewhere.
Thank you for your unbiased and very informative videos. Unfortunately, there is a tendency for only negative news about Russia and former USSR in Western media, completely forgetting this kind of Soviet legacy.
The Soviets took a similar approach with the B-29, reverse-engineering it to fill a gap as the Tu-4 and then improving on it drastically once they had solved the immediate capability gap with the US. If the two countries had been able to find a way to trust each other and work together, just imagine what they would've been capable of...
They wouldnt have achievedd anything. Unfortunately, that is the truth about human nature, if someone has a stick, you would want a bigger stick to match it up. Look at the space exploration and budget that both Space Agencies had during the cold war, because they were trying to beat each other. The moment USSR fell, what happened to NASA's budget? You see the problem there. Competition gives an incentive to work, without competition nothing happens. It is ironic that most of the development comes during wars not during paece time, because war warrants a necessity to develop it. Just look at everything good that came from WW2. The rockets, the ICBMS, the supersonic planes, nuclear energy, advanced weaponry, Peace (to some parts of the world). Do you think there would have been nukes without WW2, or the sexy planes that fly around without cold war, or the space race, the moon landings and all the space exploration without the cold war.? People who say "if they had worked together we would have progressed much more", are naiive who dont understand human nature at all. Just remember, that humans seek competition, just look at US. how many launch vehicles it had during cold war? How many launch vehicles the Soviets had. Just loo at the state of US now? How many launch vehicles they have now? They rely on private companies to put their astronauts to space. The same way, Russia only has Proton and Soyuz and now Angara, but look at the state of their other frequently used lasunchers, they are nowhere to be seen. I personally think that the fall of the Soviet Union had the worst impact on the progress and development of the world. If both kept competiting, it would have pushed us to develop much faster.
@Phillip Habsburg true. but I may be missing something, however I haven't heard anything about completely autonomous system on US shuttle which could land it on its own. there is a difference between the remote control and autonomous onboard system. and that system at that time could make decisions according to situation. as it was said, during the automatic landing it did detect crosswinds and corrected the flight trajectory. It really is impressive that they could make it possible with the technology level they had.
@@phillip_iv_planetking6354 remote control system is like flying drone, the person who have the "remote" controls it but autonomus system is like robot, can land on its own, can detect crosswind and other problem to delay the landing and do another turn
Paul, I'd argue that the Russians did the right thing. Putting people a couple of meters *beside* thousands of gallons of explosive rocket fuel and oxidizer, and below falling ice caused by fueling cryogenic fuel and oxidizer efficiently killed 14 American astronauts, more than the Soviet manned space program, plus the rest of the American space program combined. The basic design never should have left the napkin in Denny's. Respect for minimal safety standards should have limited the concept to being a cruel joke and it never should have left the restaurant. We Americans love to criticize the Soviet Union/Russia for casual disregard for safety, when they always had higher standards than we did. Accidents happen. Foreseeable accidents, resulting from brazen disregard for safety, happen a lot more frequently.
What you Overlook is the American space program gave the Soviets a HUGE jump start. And reduced thier engineering expenditure dramatically. It's easier to see ahead when you stand on the shoulders of giants. We accomplished much more considering we did the initial research and development. And at a time when there was no computer modeling or aided design. It was done with slide rule and good old American know how
@Saxxony Ger i bet you did. They sell a product for that incontinence. Yes. ANYONE can have an idea or concept. There is MUCH more involved in bringing it to fruition. Germans had a jet design. But couldn't figure out the metallurgy to make it last more than a few min in flight. While the Brits design was able to fly for thousands of hours with No noticeable issues. Their engineering worked. They found a design to function with materials avl. At the time. The Americans solved the metallurgical issues. The very foundational problems. Might want to start at step one.
@Saxxony Ger typical leftist. Euro trash. Potty mouth. Can't have an adult conversion, debate or simply disagree without devolving into personal insults and disgusting references. Must be sad to be so bitter. Good luck with that. But I'm donewith this.
To me the big difference is that in the USSR things were done the best they could regardless of anything else. In the USA things were made and still are done guided mainly by business. That's capitalism in action. Russia adopted it and lost almost everything in the way. They've won wonderful things like a huge mafia and McDonald's to say it fast. Good for them. Unfortunately no one seems to realise that Socialism had good things. Of course it also jad many bad ones but this doesn't preclude the first.
It suffered from the same problems that STS did - the stupid military got way to much say in the design process. The requirements were completely nuts for a manned space ship: it was overblown for a crew ferry vehicle, unnecessarily complex for a cargo ship and simply not necessary at all for a heavy lift system. In the end it shared the same fate as the STS: a marvel of technology with no real purpose (or rather too many at once) that was too expensive to develop and complex to operate. They should have ditched the Buran and went straight to Energia 2 (which was the original Energia design that had to be scaled down due to schedule and budget overruns with the orbiter). Just imagine this: the Soviets could have had a fully reusable system more powerful than SpaceX's BFR by 1990...
I'm happy that this huge KGB labor camp called ussr collapsed, so I could leave it forever and never return to its kgb descendant called russia. Private firms can do much much better, without enslaving anyone, and also cheaper.
So, we might say that the end of the Cold War and the fall of the USSR actually retarded the development of space technology, and did so considerably. Oh well. I suppose that, economically, it was all due for a shake-up anyway. We need systems that are more affordable and all to use, and as this happens and launches become more common, something that is more environmentally friendly as well.
Awesome video as always! May I give some Russian pronunciation advice? enErgia (second 'e' stressed), glushkO ('o' stressed), korol'Ov ('o' stressed, and 'l' is soft like in 'lonely). Of course, that's not a crucial thing. I do it just in case you look for some feedback ;-)
mostly due to fewer, better engines. the N-1 was mostly undone by the fact rocket engines had to be shipped in on trains, and their complex plumbing didn't respond well to being jostled around for a few days before beign used.
Great video!! I have read a little bit about Buran before, but haven't found much. You had information I have read before (for example, I don't think I've ever heard about the turbofan engines). I found your channel recently and have watched several videos already. You may also be interested in Vintage Space. Amy also has some great content that often complements your videos well.
This channel has to be one of the most interesting that I've subscribed to in the last 3 or 4 yrs or so.... Every new upload is either new info or a complement to a subject I was familiar with already... Thnk you for your channel....
I saw the Buran in the Speyer Museum and its overwelming! Im so impressed by the people of that time. its a shame that we wasted that much time to come back to a real space "race " again. i really looking forward to all those cool missions and flights in the upcoming time. and to you, mr. droid, i really enjoy your videos and espacially your shirts ;)
Excellent little vid. Thank you. I knew a lot about Buran and Energia, but hadn't seen the visualizations for the Energia 2. Very impressive. I always thought it was a better conceptualized machine due to the simplicity of system, it's purely liquid propellant set-up and clearly having learned from the Shuttle's misgivings. In reality the Shuttle always showed of it's almost instantly redundant covert and largely military pedigree. I loved the shuttle and can watch launch vids for hours, but the clean bright burn of Energia is a thing to behold. A pity it never had a chance to develop properly, mistakes and problems included, and historically speaking very sad that there was not better quality film footage of its construction and launches. But communism. like capitalism, has always had it's victims. Thanks again.
It was indeed the better Concept. But after seeing both of them, I must say the Space Shuttle was much more comfortable. The Cockpit of the Buran is really small.
You can see the same clean bright burn of Atlas V with RD-180 on first stage (at least some of them). It has the same family engine and the engine has the same burn process.
> _I must say the Space Shuttle was much more comfortable. The Cockpit of the Buran is really small._ The comfort thing is a recurring theme in Soviet design (...of, like, everything). It seems that, while the structural components were often expected to withstand many times the typical stress-and proven designs had successfully demonstrated this approach-when it came to ergonomics, as long as the bare minimum was met, it was considered acceptable at that point and no further attention was given to improving quality of life. If you've ever been to a typical Soviet kitchen, you know how it is. Almost like the people using the design don't matter, ha! Nowadays, with the open market competition (where applicable) forcing manufacturers to cater to the customers' needs, the comfort issue has mostly been solved, but the quality and durability dropped dramatically to compensate. In government-funded industries such as the defense and aerospace, there has been no significant improvement yet the quality drop is just as bad, if not worse than in the others. I swear, this land must have been cursed.
I really enjoy watching your videos. They are always well made and packed with interesting information. It also seems like there is a lot of researching going into the making of one of these. Keep up the good work.
Love Curious Droid videos. Always well researched and superbly presented. A marvelous antidote to all the conspiracy theory rubbish and pseudo science garbage on RUclips.
Droid, this is fascinating. I've only seen a couple or so of your videos, but that was enough to make me an admirer. You're making RUclips what it was meant to be, instead of the travesty that it has ended up becoming.
I'm really enjoying the series of videos on the Russian and American manned space programs. I'm learning a lot that was never discussed at the time! Thank you and keep up the great work!
John Burns Is that a joke? They fell behind in the mid 60s and were never really competitive in any area after that, except maybe for space stations, which they turned to after their lunar program collapsed.
@@johnburns4017 Were they? And were their firsts necessarily significant? Vostoks 3 and 4 in 1962, and 5 and 6 in 1963, were each launched so they would be in orbit at the same time. Soviet propaganda strongly suggested that they rendezvoused with each other. They did not. In each case, the spacecraft were in different orbits that only brought them within several miles of each other. Vostok 6 was widely touted for being the first flight of a woman in space. So what? It was of no scientific relevance, she did not pilot her capsule, it was automated, and they didn't fly another woman for more than twenty years. Even today, they have flown a grand total of four. So I would say that the fact that they put Valentina Thereshkova in a capsule is meaningless. In 1964, in response to the impending Gemini Program, the Soviets conducted their Voskhod Program. This consisted of two flights in modified Vostok capsules. Because Gemini was going to be a two man craft, they stuffed three men in to Voskhod 1. In order to do it, they had to have them lying on their sides, one behind the other, without space suits, and take out every possible piece of equipment. They arbited for 24 hours, doing and accomplishing nothing, and landed. Voskhod 2 had a crew of two and accomplished the first space walk. It was nearly a disaster because Leonov's suit ballooned up and he almost couldn't get back in the spacecraft. Between that time, and January of 1969, the Soviets attempted exactly two manned flights, Soyuz 1, in which Komorov was killed, and Soyuz 3, in October of '68, which rendezvoused with, but failed to dock with, the unmanned Soyuz 2. In January of 1969, Soyuz's 4 and 5 rendezvoused and docked, and two men spacewalked from 4 to 5. That might have seemed mighty impressive if it had not come barely three weeks after Apollo 8 circumnavigated the Moon. In that same span of time, we conducted 12 manned space flights, in which we achieved the first rendezvous, and docking. We did those things multiple times, we performed spacewalks, and we maneuvered in orbit, all in a program of research to learn the skills necessary to go the Moon, each flight building on what had been learned in the previous ones. This all culminated in Apollo 8, but, of course, Apollo 8 was not the culmination. The next Soviet manned flight was in October of '69, when they launched three Soyuz craft, with the intention of a triple rendezvous, and one of them filming the other two docking. That, again, might have been very impressive if the United States had not already landed on the Moon by then. The United States has explored every planet in the Solar System. The Russians have landed probes on Venus, but, to my knowledge, have yet send a successful probe to Mars. The US has launched multiple orbiting observatories, the Russians, not so much. And, of course, looking forward, the Russians have ceased flying their Proton booster, and have no scheduled flights of the new Angara rocket. They have lost all of the international launch business they once dominated. Their Soyuz rocket will now be limited to a few domestic payloads per year, including ISS supply runs. The Soyuz capsule will continue to carry Russian crew to the ISS, but they will soon lose their contract to carry NASA astronauts. They are developing no new rockets or spacecraft and have no plans for major unmanned probes. The US, on the other hand, is developing multiple, advanced and reusable boosters and six different manned spacecraft. One of them, SpaceX's BFR, will, like the Space Shuttle, be a true space ship, capable of multiple, varied missions. It will be far more advanced than the Shuttle, and will make Soyuz look like a biplane.
So let me get this straight, the USSR built their own space shuttle with a higher payload capacity without solid boosters, an ability to fly like a plane by itself, had a functional abort system, nailed its first test flight and was able to land in a weather situation with a powered second attempt battling winds which would have destroyed/killed the American shuttle/crew making the USA look like a joke, and was not canceled because of design/budget but the fall of the USSR?
this was a massive accomplishment but probably at least somewhat linked to the collapse, as the budget wasn't much of a concern when it came to making huge impressive accomplishments as propaganda for the soviets - not that America didn't do the same, just with greater economic efficiencies. Though, I can't exactly know this for certain since we do tend to blow a ton of money on military hardware; we have our graft issue as well. The Afghanistan war was another reason for the fall; again, trying to take on a huge project that got more and more expensive, in part due to our involvement. Had their economy been better managed, they might have lasted far longer or even turned into a China-like system.
The Buran had ejection seats for pilot and copilot, as did the first Shuttle flights. In either case they could only be used during the first 90 seconds of flight after which they were unusable and the other abort options would be chosen. The Shuttle carried it's main engines back for reuse whereas the Buran engines were all single use and not recovered. None of the Energia was reusable, the Shuttle disposed only the external tank and reused everything else including the SRB's. If Buran had ever become operational it's possible the US would have developed an STS 2.0, we'll never know.
@@pi.actualI heard that refueling the shuttles SRBs was more expensive then just making new ones. Also the shuttle program was not cheap or affordable at all (compared to what they were hoping for atleast).
Looking at the Soviets' advances in the 50s, and the Buran, as compared to the Nedelin disaster and the 1969 N1 pad fallback accident, I wonder if the Soviets (or even Roscosmos) could have consistently beaten the Americans in the space race, if only their space program hadn't been mired in CPSU politics and bureaucracy (e.g. rushing projects to be completed before the anniversary of the 1917 revolution or Lenin's birthday, etc.), as opposed to NASA/ESA where the political leadership gave the engineers more time to prepare missions and will authorize any requested delays within reason (popular belief is that STS-51-L got rushed by Reagan so the launch could coincide with the 1986 SOTU address, but I'm skeptical that was really the case)
STS-51L was part of a larger problem that developed within the STS program. NASA had promised Congress low costs, and the only way to get the cost lower was to have a higher launch rate, which meant rushing everything and scrimping on tracking down problems such as O-ring burn-through. What happened to Challenger could have happened on several previous missions launched in cold weather, the crew of 51L just happened to win the bad luck lottery that day. Same thing with Columbia; NASA had problems with debris shedding from the very first shuttle launch, and incorrectly determined it would not be a problem.
@Helium: Yep, Columbia and Challenger failed in the same wrongheaded management mindset. Instead of fixing a problem on critical systems, they assumed because there wasn't catastrophic failure in previous missions, it was okay to ignore the problem.
chrimony How were the problems with Challenger and Columbia obvious from previous launches? Thats actually not what Helium said. With your management mindset nothing would ever be accomplished.
@Obvious: In both cases the problems were known. They were ignored because they didn't cause critical failures. If management hadn't done that, they wouldn't have killed the crew of two missions and destroyed two shuttles. The night before the Challenger disaster, the engineers of the O-rings convinced management at Morton-Thiokol to contact NASA and try to get the launch scrapped. After facing heavy criticism and resistance from NASA, management overrode the engineers and proceeded with the launch.
chrimony Thats not what you originally said.... "they assumed because there wasn't catastrophic failure in previous missions." The issues that caused the failure in Challenger and Columbia were not present on previous launches... Do you know why Challenger and Columbia failed? Name me the previous mission these problems were relevant.
The Energia was a really beautiful and powerful rocket! I'm not sure why the Russians did not revive it (now that they have again a need for super heavy lift capability) instead of going for a new design like the Yenisei and the Don. (Although don't get me wrong, I'm super stoked for these 2 new developments! :) )
10:37 WTF!!!!!? GENIUS! How sad is that? Lack of money destroyed mankind dreams. Imagine if the world would work together what they could reached. But sadly it will never happen. What a pitty man. Mankind stupidity kills all progress. It's heartbleeding, all this know how lost in dust... Very painful to watch I could cry. What left? Small private mini-starship with the size of a fly... Ok, I go to cry.
As a person who used to live in the USSR and was watching on TV the launch of Buran into space back then, this clip almost brought me into tears.
What is your opinion of the United States doing everything in their power to restart the Cold War? It's just a cynical attempt to extend the military industrial complex because that scam is so profitable for so many.
@@fuzzywzhe I'm also Russian (though, I sometimes work for US and I can tell that there are a lot of russian engineers who do, and this is about very complex things, so I think russian engineers are cool) and I think that Russia is unable to take competition anymore, sadly. Russia is very different from USSR. My opinion is that our government is totally disabled and cannot and doesn't even try/want to satisfy neither science, nor engineering skills russian engineers offer.
@@eggrevolver As a Canadian-Ukrainian, I hope the USSR comes back. (Judging by current events, and what led to the USSR in the first place, it is almost inevitable.)
@@eggrevolver Да здравствует Советский Союз!!
@@walterbrunswick USSR also had lots of drawback. I'd rather want to have a country which is something more than USSR, something modern. A confederation of nations maybe with only good ideas borrowed from USSR.
While it may suck that Buran only flew once, what sucks even more is that Energia was cancelled. That rocket was almost as powerful as thing like BFR and the SLS. So sad ;-(
I suppose there is no need for a super-heavy rocket these days. What would you like to deliver to LEO that weights 100 tons?
With that much power, you could achieve with multiple lunches, 2-3, assembly of a big rocket for interplanetary transport, just imagine having this vehicle 30 years ago ... things could've been way different.
if there is need pretty sure they can reactivate it. as for buran seems there are better ways for recovery vehicles... wonder about cargo recovery thou
A nuclear thermal powered interplanetary space tug. Or use it to assemble a 1 million ton space station in just a few years. It was efficient per kg, reusable, and had a colossal payload capacity. That is exactly what SLS and BFR are trying to reinvent. Should just buy the Later Energia design blueprints from Russia. It was a MAJOR cost improvement on the Saturn V.
i bet musk took inspiration from these cancelled russian projects.....
I’m a proud American- but I get really annoyed when I hear other american’s disregarding their enemy’s achievements- especially in space. the human accomplishment of space travel was amazing. The fact that the soviets built a fully autonomous rocket and glider is amazing.
Patrick's Music Just like UK/French designed Concorde. The Soviets stole copies of the Concorde. In any case, both the Russian copies of the Shuttle and Concorde were bodged and never made it.
And the fact that it genuinely was superior from a payload and safety perspective. Buran simply was a better design. I don't think anybody with a serious knowledge of the shuttle program could deny that. And the sad thing is, the existing shuttles could have easily been converted to a Buran-style launch system, except NASA had stopped innovating back in the 1980's and were content to keep launching astronauts on top aging deathtraps.
@@anthonyglee1710 Concorde was shit and was copied from russian Tu-144 which made it first :)
Whats mind boggling is that in the 1980s they not only made a computer that could easily fit inside of the shuttle, but it had an AI that could control the ship autonomously and make decisions on its own. That was a marvel of creation by itself.
Soviets beat us to space and probably would’ve done far more than that had they had the financial backing we had. They’re highly intelligent, skilled engineers.
Imagine if the geniuses of the two rivaling space programs were allowed to combine their ideas and funds. Humanity could have started colonizing Mars by now!
True....very true ....
If we (politicians) can only stop the bullshit about being the City on the Hill or promoting exceptionalism it will remove the obstacles to cooperation
Se hizo un buen transbordador y no sirvió ni para museo.Toda la culpa es del régimen comunista , que cayo en bancarrota total , por querer seguir a los americanos.
@@fernandomartinezrivera7283 Ese es un buen punto. Pero lo mismo pasó con el X-33 en América. Los políticos se pusieron en medio y echaron a la basura años de trabajo... una pena en realidad, porque la tecnología espacial debería estar fuera del alcance de la burocracia estúpida que por un berrinche puede echar abajo el trabajo de muchas personas...
How sweet and naive. Comrade Lenin may have objected, child.
However is it not competition that drives innovation, in a world where there is no competition for superiority we have no industrial revolution, no power systems and certainly no flight or rocket technology; we may have peace and love however
Buran was a amazing vessel, such a lost potential.
Buran was an unsuccessful waste of money which was why it was abandoned.
@@CH-pv2rz it did its intended job, the government was a failure
@@CH-pv2rz It wasn't abandoned as such; the country that built it imploded one year after the first launch. They were barely able to keep MIR going (with Sergei Krikalev at one point staying on MIR, his two comrades returning to earth. That way SK could maintain MIR, but without any means of returning to Earth. He had to hope that a new Soyuz would arrive to allow him a return. They did eventually, but no guarantee. Very brave man. The only human to date to be effectively stranded in space.
Anyway, had the USSR survived, Buran would have had a different story.
Maybe, Energia was a real star
@@CH-pv2rz just like Challenger that used to crash every other flight?
No doubt, Buran-Energia was an engineering marvel
The fact that the USSR had the technology to lift Energia up to space and then make it land without any pilots controlling it blew my mind!
Landing automatically on the Moon is one thing but landing automatically on the freaking Earth is another.
If you are asking, the later is 100 times harder due to the existence of more gravity and ... an actual atmosphere.
The american shuttle had been doing it for years.
@@psygn0sis The shuttle never flew unmanned, unless you count the times it killed its pilots
@@problemat1que ooff damn
Why is this surprising to you? After all, the father of all unmanned vehicles is the Soviet engineer Kemerjan. He not only created unmanned vehicles in the USSR, but also advised the Americans on this. And if you would have known that the modern computer processors Intel and Intel Pentium, which were used all over the world, were based on the Soviet processor. As well as a cell phone and the first personal computer that we know, it was also created much earlier than in USA, in addition, it is also patented.
Soviet opted for automatic flight because they feared that the pilot could escape and land the Buran in western country... It was with same with Gagarin 1st flight. It was automatic. Nasa never did automatic flight cause, american never thought than pilot can escape to Soviet country.
To be honest, the Buran-Energia looks like a better system than the Shuttle, with a better and more flexible architecture.
Its fate was a tragedy.
And, oh, I would have loved so much to see a fully reusable Energia II with gliding boosters.
It will 100 percentage successful bcs of their highly powerful engines and high technology ❤❤
Almost cried after watching the roof collapse on the Buran. A big loss for all future generations.
As if it was ever going to be used again lol give me a break
@@iLoveBoysandBerries Buran rocked. It just so happened that USSR went broke else it would have had many missions and mankind would have a better foothold in space.
Upu are full of 💩. The Buran flew once, with no crew, and with a non-reusable rocket to do it. It was a huge waste of money and would have never been successful. It was the money pit of all money pits...
Actually that could be pretty easily fixed. Maybe a few months of work and it would be as good as new. Remember it’s older technology so it would be a cinch. They could have this thing in orbit by November
@@CH-pv2rz Oh yeah, nothing new there, that's exactly how the "glorious" american shuttle worked, dumbass. Main tank and booster were never reused. Aside from buran, Energia was a proper launcher by itself.
I cant imagine how it must have felt being one of those workers who built the Buran and seeing it destroyed like that. So much time and money wasted, truely heart breaking sight. Rip workers who were killed in the roof collapse.
It is still there I saw a video of These guys playing in it. Ha!
@@trainrick1 That is a different one....
@@trainrick1 Those where the unfinished and test article burans
The one that flew is the one that got crushed
I had no idea the Buran had flown and orbited. That fact has been oddly absent in the documentaries I have seen here in States. Hmmmm.
During the time that Buran flew the Soviet Union was still heavily secret in it space missions; they very much wanted to make sure that if they failed, it would not be widely known. At least not on display for all to see, that would have been too embarrassing for the Soviets. Their missions were typically not even announced until after they had ended successfully. If those missions failed, they were usually not even mentioned. So when a lot of the documentaries about the US space shuttle were made, very little was known about Braun to include, at that time. It wasn't until the fall of the USSR that much of their space program came to light.
Omg. What have they been telling you. Do you know the first American in space didn't even orbit the earth? But hey, they still call him an ass-tronaut.
Ofcourse
You must be young. This was all over the news, including video when Buran made it's one flight.
The would not be showing it prowdly in the USA lol
I did my grade 10 science project on Buran in 2005. No one in the room had ever heard of it. Of course I had to use the Shuttle as a comparison for people to understand the difference and, to be honest, it's superiority.
Such a shame it never lived up to it's potential.
I m starting to think the russian engineers are very very good at their job
Bruce Wayne is Deadpool *soviet **were/used to be
Fernando Romera why are they dead now all of them. Sure they do not have the money but the technology the knowledge and the engineers behind all of this are all pretty much alive.
Bruce Wayne is Deadpool Because everything the soviets did was kept secret.
Agreed self driving shuttle!, We had to wait till Elon musk came along before we got self driving stuff .
+Fernando Romera True, those were Soviet engineers, not just Russian. But now Russian engineers are still showing what they can do with the newest country's military products, while all other former USSR republics can no longer develop and manufacture any high tech production. The late Soviet elites there have used the nationalism card to take the USSR apart, what resulted in a great regress to all of its republics and was irreversible to all of them but Russia which by now is as big or bigger than united Germany in terms of GDP in PPP values.
Such a spectacular work of engineering, with a terribly tragic ending. I'm glad other rockets were able to benefit from the knowledge Buran brought into this world and I hope that knowledge continues to help humanity as we enter a new space age.
"Buran" was invented as exceptionally military project. It didn't share with world any knowledge or technology.
Yuriy The loader
You are a stupid person! The energy of Buran brought to the world a lot of new technologies that the whole world uses today. And it is military development that gives progress to the world. Earlier, the Soyuz rocket7 was also Military, and what? Now it benefits the world. Teflon was invented for military purposes, now it benefits in the civil sphere.
How do you like the submarine Zototaya Rybka? Thanks to this, the USSR and now Russia is the only country in the world that is capable of producing huge parts and producing various welding of high-strength Titan. Even the American aircraft lockheed sr-71 blackbird was built from Russian titanium purchased in the USSR. Today many details of Boeing and Airbus are produced in Russia from Russian titanium
Никита Лель No, he's correct. You are an idiot.
RealityIsTheNow
You are an idiot and an underdeveloped person who does not even seem to have finished school
You are stupendously ignorant of the history of space exploration. You lack the depth of knowledge to even form and opinion, as your positions are all entirely based on insanely stupid (and misplaced) nationalism and hated and a WILD inferiority complex. Yuriy The loader is correct. You are a completely ignorant IDIOT.
Thank you for the honest, without bias story.
Russian
Engineers have fewer issues with honesty than politicians.
loved the no bias details
Slavs rock. You just tend to have the misfortune of having not great governments.
I'm currently looking for a way to get my hands on a Buran Energia model, because it really is something that should not be forgotten.
@@carljohan9265 Now we are moving in a right direction.
@@carljohan9265 Yeah it really is cool to still be using VCRs and nokia bricks in 2012
OMG!!!! I just went home from "Technik Museum Speyer" here in Germany, where I saw one of the Buran shuttles (actually "Speyer's shuttle" is seen in 3:05 !!!) just to see you uploaded a video about them today!!! I'm freaking out right now! :D
Did you buy your scarf to match your latex gloves? And whatever tf is in those vials? Tres chic.
Enjoy your freak out (8
Lunatic Cringe No, it was a coincidence :D ...oh, it's just some pigments, sorry if that disappoints you. I'm studying to become a conservator :)
Edit: Sorry, had to change my pic! :D
There's a sort of fad going on about Buran. I've seen several channels uploading videos about it, articles in sites like CNN and the like.
Ginny855 where is this museum in Germany, i wish to visit it
Diego C. Oh okay, didn't know that :) But still, this is Curious Droid!
The best, truthful Buran presentation on english language I have ever heard. Bravo!
Didn't know Lord Varys did youtube videos as a side gig
Good for him!!!!
;?D
Hahahahaha........
Lol
omg you are right i knew it! i was recognizing him from somewhere!!
Wait, wouldn't Varys be running scared the literal instant he confused... fucking _any_ of this shit for magic?
Props to the USSR from America, that is one hell of an impressive shuttle.
Only if there economy was as good as there space program
If only America's education system was as good as Russia's economy.
Sergant Ijzerhand Yeah Gorbachev and revisionism absolutely destroyed it.
Xavier Rodriguez collectivism destroyed it
The education system is fine, its the diversity in USA that causes the problems.
So sad that the program was discontinued 😔
The Space shuttle was a boondoggle, useless.
The shuttle program was a disaster.
Soviet economic was not actually "socialist", more like concentration camp economic. That allowed to transfer huge resources on something like space program.
How much more stuff would we have put into space by now if we didn't also have to put up a big heavy glider and dead engines that would then need to be completely rebuilt after each mission?
"all socialist economies are concentration camps economies" - all, really? Like Scandinavia? France? By US standards they are worse than socialists - communists.
USSR never were socialists or communists. Small group of terrorists-radicals that used popular in society ideas to get to power. They never delivered anything they promised. Even pure fascist Mussolini made more for people of Italy.
It has been said that the system that landed Buran autonomously was the greatest feat of software engineering. There were several brilliant innovations in this one.
That Energia II looks really cool. NASA had messed with the idea of flyback boosters before, too. There was a plan for a flyback F1 booster stage and also plan to replace the shuttle's SRBs with Liquid Rocket Boosters (LRBs) that would have wings and fly back to a runway using jets. Ultimately we had to wait for the Falcon 9 to see anything that cool.
Helium Road Well the Russians could always revive the Energia II with modern tech and shit. It's a cool concept. And I imagine it would work far more better than the the American SLS which is just I'm a constant stage of development for years and years. There is going to be a huge need for massive heavy lift vehicles soon. I don't think everyone is going to buy SPACE X as impressive as they are.
The Raging Storm the problem with old but successful rockets is that the people who know how to build & operate them are no longer around. Instead of having multiple new rocket scientist try to recreate another engineers design, it's more reliable to ask them to build a new system of their own design. Same reason the Russians had to build this rocket in the first place. Because the guy who designed it died.
True, but building a modern improved version of rockets like the Energia or even the Saturn V is not technically difficult; both vehicles are well-documented and have successful flight history and data, and there are even existing examples to physically inspect. NASA even has a raft of fresh never-used F1 engines in storage. The hardest part is funding, bureaucracy, institutional inertia, public perception, etc.
Actually, the unused F1 engines were pretty much divided up among various museums and displays. On the other hand, they DID start an effort to design and build an upgraded F-1B engine for use as a liquid booster on the SLS a few years back, but after doing some preliminary testing of subassemblies and some 3D printed parts, the project seems to have gone dark for the past few years, since NASA announced that they were going to use solid boosters for the foreseeable future. It's a shame because the F1 is the most powerful single chamber rocket engine ever built, and the F-1B was going to be even more powerful thanks to new engineering.
I wonder if those LRBs would have needed as much refurbishment as NASA's SRBs;
It's one of the reasons why the STS' reusability was pretty much a moot point.
The ET still lost and a maintenance-heavy shuttle didn't really help either.
Energia-Buran was one of my favorite programs ever built or tested.
Well I have one wish to Russia, or Roscosmos:
Please make Energia II into reality
nope. They'd better spend money on some -gays- *footballists*
Energia II is still on paper and even though it will look cooler than any LEO rocket made by the US, sadly there is no promise given other than an idea to resurrect the project. Russian engineering favor now falls into next-generation Soyuz rocket (Soyuz 5) which is more modular than Energia.
@Boarlaw Attorneys At Law putin ran the freaking country into the ground both economically and politically and thus, scientifically. are you an effin bot?
@@xjmdm Путин возродил мою страну из пепла.
@@MsCodename84 И не мечтай
What a sad story :(. Imagine if they had a blanc check maybe even international cooperation on this project... instead here we are, lecturing american truck drivers the earth is not flat.
91plm Not a bad idea if politics didn’t exist but suppose the Americans had just paid the ruskis to develop version 2.
Mad dog kleptocrat Putin would have pulled the plug and had won the space race while the Americans would have gotten a huge egg on the face - again.
They would prepare pilots for it from all socialistic countries. Like an extension of "intercosmos" programm.
vondahe what?... average wage of Russian now is 500$ as a maximum - per month. National GDP is lower than Turkish one. Those engines are a little answer to a huge amount of import pushed into Russia and creating many debts for people. Hope they understand it later or will work for 500$ more and more.
I once saw one of the Buran at display in the German museum in Speyer and I could not hold back my tears wheb I stood next to it.
So much engineering effort achieved such a great vehicle, but was never put to any use.
The tragedy sinply is simply overwhelming 😢
It is so sad to watch this. My heart is bleeding that all that program was for nothing🥺
Your heart bleeding?! The fck
Wow I never knew there was so much to the Buran program! I always heard on space history channels about “the failed Buran program” but I never knew they had successful flights and invented their own technology!
Same here while I was aware it had some advanced autonomous systems for the time I never knew it could land completely unmanned, I'm not sure commercial aircraft of this day with their advanced pilot assistance are capable of unmanned landings rally puts into perspective of what the Soviet engineers acheived with mid-late 80s computer technology
They only had one flight and it was without a crew. The USSR was good at copying other countries ideas and putting their own spin on things but it usually did not end up working out. The Buran and the Tupolev Tu-144 (Russian Concorde) are two prime examples of this, neither programs ever became fully operational.
@@wetlettuce4768 It is even more amazing that soviet computer hardwere technology is much worse than the west, they had to make the softwere extreamly optimized. Auto landing on aircraft is nothing new in 1980s tho.
I’ve had the same experience. I don’t recall ANY of the documentaries I’ve seen on American TV EVER MENTIONING THE FACT THAT THE RUSSIAN SHUTTLE MADE IT INTO ORBIT. That is a key point to the story.
Censorship through omission is still censorship. Thanks MSM.... again.
@@CheekyMonkey1776 It was all over the news back then, comrade Monkeesovitch. American media are NOT russian media. Why would they censor the result of a vulgar knock-off of an American concept and technology ?
The unbelievable thing is that there were atmospheric test flights of Buran prototypes, equipped with the 4 jet engines and they took off like normal planes! I discovered the footage just recently and couldn't believe my eyes that this "flying brick" ,as the Americans called their space shuttle, could not only just land but take off on its own! Or maybe only the Russian version could :)
Tom T. F-117 had proven any brick with jet engines can fly.
Tom, that’s not true at all. Not only could the Buran not “take off under its own power”, Soviet engineering of this vehicle was sad which is why it never flew in space. The breakup of the USSR really had little to do with that. Poor engineering had much more to do with it.
@There's No God You'd think wrong.
I am quite familiar with the history of the space program from the 70s forward, as I lived it.
I remember the 80s very well. I was an adult at that time.
I am also a Solar System Ambassador for NASA/JPL, so I have a little insight on these things.
Everything Tom T. said about the Buran is wrong. Even a google search would reveal to you that not only could the Buran not take off under its own power, but that it was a "dinosaur", poorly engineered. The breakup of the USSR had nothing to do with the cancellation of the program. Roscosmos was not affected by the breakup. It was business as usual.
Conduct a little research on this subject.
There's No God
Wikipedia is not credible citation. The Buran had no such flights. Not true.
@There's No God Lol.
No, they are not, because it NEVER happened.
But you go right on believing that if you want. I was just trying to deliver some factual information to you, but I can see that you are not interested in such things.
You go right on believing this and other conspiracy theory garbage all day. No sweat off of my back.
I'm sure the aluminum foil companies must make a killing off of gullible people like yourself.
Have a nice day.
SO sad for this program being scrapped. Ironically, we need it now to launch orbital hardware and Lunar/Mars missions!
Where are these designs now???
My heart is bleeding right now, I can tell you that!
This is so painful to watch, it is unbelievable...
Honk Honk >> Good comment. Reasons to invest in space are plenty. There’s the serendipitous effects. A considerable amount of modern technologies like microprocessors, Velcro, and ICU telemetry come from the space program. Then there’s getting all of humanity off of the one rock.
Were any of you alive at the time? I was, and I remember on television the Sabre rattling and belligerence of US - USSR and the fear of total nuclear destruction.
It was real. It was palpable.
Probably at Elon's Musk... Labs bought for pocket change LMAO
You need to make food before you can make rockets.
@@tristunalekzander5608 they are in fact last year they exported more agricultural than weapons, their agro growth was 20% back in 2014 when they got sanctions they started growing their agro by 2016 they surpassed Soviet era grain production if you like take a look at this analysis from the duran a UK news outlet about Russian economy and how they manage to generate immunity to sanctions and in fact adapted their economy and got ahead ruclips.net/video/06cdlU1iwIQ/видео.html
Really interesting topic, love your videos :D
one pick up truck / shuttle , two , just get there cheap , many examples , three heavy lift , Saturn V , and the updates , we only need one reliable design in each of 3 categories , rockets are like ladders ,
Thank you for creating these incredible informative videos! Love your method of story telling and subject matter!
I learnd a lot from this video. I'm happy to see Russa got a sucessful mission, and saddened there ended up not being more competition amung shuttle progrmas. I feel a healthy dose of competition would have spurred innovation even further. Who knows what we could have had by today.
That competition would have been something. Too bad fate and history haven't allowed it.
No, it was more competitive. But in any case, dear. The USSR was ruined. Although the project is not officially closed. By the way, the concept, like the appearance, was invented in the USSR not in the United States.
Yes. Your point?
In the USSR, as in Russia, there were many different shuttles that were tested and are now also available.
This shuttle was developed in the mid-60s (before the Shuttle) and a full-scale test mock-up was built in 1980.
2.bp.blogspot.com/-5RCFGZNEr9A/UlLavjHV8aI/AAAAAAAAayY/Li3IwWrDAE0/s1600/%25D1%2587.jpg
The Spiral,Bor4 and Epos system (1960s), then what the US is issuing for its shuttle
universetoday-rus.com/_bl/8/99712424.jpg
www.buran.ru/images/jpg/bor4-1.jpg
testpilot.ru/russia/molniya/bor/img/bor4ber1.jpg
www.lib.podelise.ru/tw_files2/urls_19/3/d-2509/2509_html_4a645d11.jpg
q-zon-fighterplanes.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Mikoyan-Gurevich-MiG-105.11.jpg
fea.ru/spaw2/uploads/images2/News_Fea%20Kvasova/%D0%9C%D0%B8%D0%B3-105_11.jpg
www.mos.ru/upload/newsfeed/newsfeed/bor4.jpg
Here is the Max system-
This is another shuttle
mirrors.pdp-11.ru/_misc/www.buran.ru/images/jpg/maxokb.jpg www.buran.ru/images/jpg/max_akk.jpg www.buran.ru/images/gif/max_os-p.gif
mirrors.pdp-11.ru/_misc/www.buran.ru/images/jpg/maxokb2.jpg mirrors.pdp-11.ru/_misc/www.buran.ru/images/jpg/maxvtb2.jpg mirrors.pdp-11.ru/_misc/www.buran.ru/images/jpg/maxvtb1.jpg
Multipurpose transport spacecraft "Hurricane"
buran.ru/images/jpg/ura_111.jpg Weight: 500 tons First flight: December 17, 1995 (unmanned), April 19, 1999 (manned.
Reusable spaceship Clipper
sam-celitel.ru/_nw/39/40411247.jpg ca0.ru/main/Cliper02.gif vremena.takie.org/_nw/1/47290813.jpg kosmos-x.net.ru/_nw/15/13216087.jpg
system=М-55-С-XXI
techno-science.net/illustration/Espace/Ansari_X_Prize/C21/351_large.jpg
old.computerra.ru/pubimages/35997.jpg
nackosmos.ru/wp-content/uploads/4.jpg
МРУ "Baikal"
svo.spb.ru/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/117.jpg
www.arms-expo.ru/upload/iblock/0d1/0d122451d481158c296cdb0a88cc5348.jpg
Also there are many other created projects
As for the project Energia Buran. That was built 2 shuttles for space and 4 test. The second shuttle for space with the test shuttle is located in the hangar on baikanur. The competition was not only between the USSR and the United States. BUT and within the USSR.
Fall off USSR was very bad for space nerds all across the world..not just because off USSR but because off competition with USA ...many great engineers went jobless... SpaceX is now only light in the tunnel
Very true. I wonder how far space exploration would have progressed by now if the Soviet Union hadn't fallen.
@ antred11
Probably not that much, seeing as the space race was basically over.
Hell, maybe we gained more from partnership of agencies in question, as limited as it may be (which is a real bugger).
Alex Krycek I sort of believe that the U.S. and the Soviet Union were gravitating more toward peaceful coexistence and cooperation anyway.
I wonder if would we have already been to Mars by now if the Soviet Union never fell as the US would have built their own heavy lift vehicle in response to Energia and a full RLV in response to Energia II?
In someways the US started to fall as well after the collapse of the Soviet Union as with out with out a rival to compete against it became lazy and sloppy.
Investing less in science and becoming less progressive.
To bre dzoni, tako je komso! xD
Почти 5лет моей жизни отдано 11к25, без слёз смотреть не могу...
Очень здорово, что Вам удалось поработать с таким крутым проектом, от которого до сих пор, спустя 30 лет - мурашки по коже.👍
Что это такое? 11к25?
@@jakshybala4113 11k25 is the GRSU designation for Energia.
наверное миллионы заплатили
@@MrEtovam Нет конечно - никаких миллионов не заплатили. Только жигули, дачка в подмосковье, профсоюзная путевка в Сочи раз в два года и электричество по 4 коп за киловатт. Но потом Березовский и Чубайс все выплатили, до копейки. Мешками деньги к КБ подвозили. Сейчас Навальный каждый месяц по 3000 евро приплачивает.
I visited star city in russia and while visiting I saw a Buran shuttle in moscow in the all-russian exhibition centre. Then I visited the cosmonaut training centre in which we had a look at the training modules for the ISS and in that same hall they had the cockpit from a Buran just sat in the corner
I was there to and it made me sad that the person walking us through did not tell us more about bran
Amazingly, the old Shuttle simulator still sits, unused, in the same hall as the Space Station training facility at JSC.
I got to see Buran at the Paris Air Show in 1989. It was mounted on top of the six-engined carrier aircraft. It was an amazing sight to see.
By the way, Polyus (Полюс) is pronounced Pole-You-S (soft s sound), not Paul-Ee-Us.
Aircraft called An-225 "Мрiя" ("Dream" in Ukranian) is still operational by Ukranian transport company.
I was amazed when I was told (by an air traffic controller, appropriately) that the carrier aircraft, called, I believe "Mria" the Russian for dream, was the only one in existence, and unlike the NASA SCAs, was purpose-built rather than being converted from a standard airliner. Does anyone know if it is still in existence, and if it is, what is it used for?
@@the3yM No, it is now detroyed by the ukrainian war. Another masterpiece gone.
Awesome narration of a long forgotten story. It almost brings me to tears thinking of the water potential in the Russian shuttles and all that technology going to waste... also to demonstrate Glushko’s work, who should have succeeded Koryolov. Great work
Почему впустую? Результаты сохранились, если будет необходимость можно будет просто сделать то что уже было сделано.
Nowadays in Russia it's all seems like a ruins of a great ancestors civilization. It's quite sad to watch all those milestones of mankind are just covered in dust, regardless of other USSR positives or negatives.
But we still haven't the attitudes that make Russia rad.
I always say if it can be done onece it can be done again.
@@Destinedtobegreat89 It can be done again, but it would require a very large amount of good will and cooperation, and I believe that they don't have enough of either at the moment.
But nowadays Russia still a single country, that can bring man into the space.
Buran was an amazing project for us. If you are interested in how things are going with BURAN now, be sure to watch this video.
ruclips.net/video/nfOFFn7y84M/видео.html
I remember Gorbachev saying 'we landed the birdie'. It was a fantastic feeling...
And then the roof landed on the Buran! 🤣
@@CH-pv2rz unfunny
@@untodesu Well, the URSS wasn't funny either.
@@LordSesshaku *g u l a g*
@@LordOfPanzers was closed in 50-s when stalin died. I wonder how long this stupid stereotype will live in the minds of uneducated people who do not know history from the word at all
What an informative video, Curious Droid. I gotta say, you have done a lot of work and research to upload videos like this. Thank you for sharing your Space Knowledge with us, thank you.
they even have the ejection seat ? so much for Soviet not caring for their crew. Looks they dont want to lost any crew at all!
It's a shame how it was discovered that the crew was probably still alive and aware of their plight on their journey towards the ocean for what 2 minutes? I think a simple parachute would have saved them
Just because the state hated the political opposition does not mean they didn't care about their people, especially intelligent, educated, skilled astronauts. The problem with totalitarian regimes is not that they don't care for human life, but that they tend to see their enemies as less than human and treat them accordingly (through that mostly applies to the Stalin era, the 1980s were very mild and liberal in the USSR by comparision and the state tolerated some dissent).
I'm from Slovakia and I know that for example food processing machines from Czechoslovakia circa 1980 were used to make baby food in France and other Western European countries, because they actually EXCEEDED the safety norms of most Western countries. The myth of USSR and Warsaw Pact not caring about their citizens needs to die. The problem with these regimes it was that they thought people who opposed them were not "real citizens".
Russians had best ejection seats and maby they still do, also modern russian helicopters are the only ones in the world with ejection seats
@Michal That is because the opposition weren't actually real citizens, but enemies of the people.
IsThisReal Hope you dont actually believe that.
Thank you for your unbiased storytelling!
Im british and got nothing against russians but you must admit your country does make shite copys of western things like your concorde lol now this space shuttle pmsl
@@stephenastbury6382 I'm from the U.S. and I can tell you don't underestimate the Russians capability, they make amazing tech at a fraction of the cost of western aircraft.
@@tyberious3023 well i can only say what ive seen,there version of concorde was a joke,there aircraft carrier is a bag of rusty spanners and took out by a crane lmfao.
The thing i will give the russians is the man power at there disposal though,thats there strength
@@stephenastbury6382 " is the man power at there disposal" - the population of Russia is 150 millions. It's half of USA population, less than 1/3 of EU population and is just 2.5 larger than UK population. I'm eager to hear anything about the UK space program though.
@@OlegLecinsky why would britain waste its money trying for a space programme,Russia tried keep up with the US in the space programme and buying weapons and nearly bankrupted themselves,thats why the US did it lol
Great video - I had no idea this existed! Brilliant
If I were a billionaire, I would love to bring the Energia (and maybe Buran) back to life - give it an updated design with newer parts from current Russian launchers, make modifications if possible to allow a Falcon style powered landing, and then this new Buran-Energia 2.0 could be a fully reusable heavy launcher filling a role of a lighter BFR. That would give even more competition in the space industry, and might (but also might not) be quicker and cheaper than building a new vehicle from scratch. Multiple versions of the Buran could be developed for multiple purposes - like a crew-only version capable of carrying many passengers, a fully automated resupply and fuel tanker version to resupply the ISS, future space stations, BFR upper stage, and other Buran vehicles. An automated sattelite-launch version could be the first fully-reusable heavy launch system if developed quicker than the BFR or F9 with reusable upper stage. An expendable or reusable Energia with a simple lightweight expendable upper stage could be a good super-heavy launch vehicle, launching half a large space station in one go, or launching more conventional space habitat modules to farther afield locations such as Lunar orbit, Lunar surface, Lagrange points and more.
It might be harder than designing anew from scratch, as discussed in Curious Droid's latest video about the F1 engine, but it also might be easier and cheaper than developing - say - the New Glenn or BFR. The more commercial competirion, the better IMO.
It's such a shame this great launch vehicle was wasted. Instead we were stuck with the outdated and limited capability Soyuz and Proton (though the Soyuz is a fine rocket, it is ancient and cannot do much), the expensive and equally limited capability Delta IV and Ariane V, and the capable but horrendously expensive Shuttle.
Luckily commercialised space is saving us from this mess, but the Energia and Buran could have been a great stepping stone and been decades sooner. Even today, an updated Energia (with or without, but preferably with, Buran) could compete pretty well with upcoming commercia heavy launch vehicles and the SLS.
RedButtonProductions the design was a dead end they couldn’t get anything to work reliably due to its complexity. The shuttle was ok, the launch vehicle was a disaster.
I didn't know that Buran actually flew into space on an Energia rocket, and that it was able to fly automated. A sad story, but a really good and informative RUclips video!
@Tony Starklol...so making 12 orbits before landing was not in space...lol
@@Melkor54 Don't waste your time with USsupremacist trolls. They even claim that it never did the atmospheric flights and that it could take off and land on its own.
@Tony Stark Nothing about that is true LOL
@Tony Stark all the space shuttles had damaged tiles on reentry, every one. lol...stolen plans, they are 2 completely different vehicles, the russian was the superior design...btw, it completed 14 orbits.
@Tony Stark it was never designed to have main engines, the delta wing was dimensionally different from the space shuttle and yes...it did what the space shuttle never could.
Aahhh ... just gotta love and admire the Soviet ingenuity and determination of these space projects ...
I've been waiting so long for someone to make a comprehensive Energia Buran video. Thank you to your community for voting for this as a video topic and thank you to you for making it! :) Such a shame the Energia and its proposed derivitives never came to be.
Ah man Russian engineers really blow my mind. Great video. Thanks
Many of the best ones were actually Ukrainian, not Russian.
@@jstenberg3192 Not true at all haha. Other than Glushko and Chelomei, who never identified as Ukrainian themselves, who else was ethnically Ukrainian? Let me guess - Korolev? Who had a Russian mother and studied/lived inside Russia his entire life?
@@jstenberg3192 they were soviet first of all, and they will spit in your face if you'll start divide them to "good" ukranians and "bad" russian.
It's a matter of money. The Russians spent billions on a useless space shuttle, and people lived in poverty.
@@jstenberg3192 It looks like: some rocket is not american, best part of it is Texasian and other ones is Columbian and rest is Wisconsinian. Stupid? So it is.
Those gliding boosters look like a great idea.
that concept with the multiple boosters gliding back home is just amazing
I don't get people who say "Buran is just a copy!!!" aerodynamics, laws of physic and bureaucracy are the same in USA and USSR
Penzija Mirovinić Paul said in the video that it was a copy and that saved the Soviets engineers time and to improve on a proven design. Besides it looks the same,.
I think the problem with "just a copy" is that it creates a misconception that Buran was just a knockoff instead of an improved derivative. Shame it never got anywhere
Penzija Mirovinić
Both governments in their competition made great advances in space exploration. "The Chief Engineer" was indeed a genius. The United States had a genius in Dr. Robert Goddard, but our government and military ignored and shunned him. Despite giving them all his patents the US military wanted to fight wars the way they already had. Germany amateur rocketeers who admired Goddard build rockets enthusiastically, and in the next war built the V1 and V2 rockets. The U.S.S.R. government concerned that the US would gain the high ground (wisely) pulled Sergei Korolev out of a Siberian concentration camp and into its space program. Von Braun and his peers took great risk and effort to surrender to the Americans, and offer their services. Despite their talents and accomplishments the US government put them on the back burner. Had it not been for the U.S.S.R. and President Eisenhower the United States would probably not have entered the Space Age. Had Goddard's offer been accepted and developed the United States would probably would have led the world by decades. Instead we played catch up, again and again. I see a similar US attitude and situation in regard to robotics today. The country with the most resources does the least with what it has.
Michael Hartman I agreed until that last sentence. With regards to your second to last sentence, some people have that view but most importantly some don't and they are the reason robotics in the USA advances. Look at advanced manufacturing in the USA, it's done by robots...
Dont be so offended by the term copy. Buran is a copy, but not "just". Many say it was the superior design.
wow, nice job dude, never even heard of Buran. Thanks for passing on the knownledge brp, its greatly appriciated.
The quality of your videos is just amazing!
It's sad that mere ideologies could get in the way of advancing human technological progress. Can you imagine what could've been if the US and USSR had put aside their differences and worked together? Columbia may not have been, especially with an unmanned Buran sent to rescue the crew. The ISS could have been leaps and bounds more advanced and huge than it is now. Energia's huge payload meant that space construction could really be taken to the max. Hell, we'd probably be able to construct huge space arks by now. Something that's impossible now due to weight restrictions of current rockets. Forget Mars, with those we'd be reaching the outskirts of the solar system by now. Similarly, a moonbase would not be out of the question. Getting crap off this planet has been major issue thus far, that may not have been.
Whitout competiton we we still been thinking about many todays technology. Cooperation is nice idea but just idea whitout any incentive to work in reality. You need will and real cost/effect calculation.
The US needs a new governance system. These sociopaths in the military industrial media complex with their police surveillance state can't keep up their empire and have their kickbacks too. It disgusts me. To the extent I am a patriot, somebody has to call them out.
We weren't about to work with a bunch of dirty fucking communists. Working with Russia today is a different story, they're no longer dirty fucking communists.
If all countries cooperated money and science. Sweden, Israel, Australia, South Africa, Brazil, Norway, France, Canada, USA, Russia, China, Iran, India others...money materials and science.
Meh. Without Hate and Fear and War, there would never be Any scientific progress at all. Simple Fact. Necessity pushes invention, and there is no more urgent necessity than to survive by KILLING those trying to kill you. Moon rockets were STUPID. Only ICBMS mattered. There is NOTHING TO COLONIZE in space, it is a wasteland, waste of time and money to explore.
Excellent! Sober, objective and nearly impartial. Very well edited and well done in general. Thanks for this historical approach.
To know that the first concept of reusable autonomous rocket boosters were laid down by Russian's is not surprising. They were the 1st in space exploration, pioneers in rocket engine technology and produced countless new concepts of deep space exploration. The scientists were motivated by competition but all things ended in vain. Lesson Learned... "Politics and Engineering Sciences don't mix together".
We just ran out of Von Brauns.
without realizing it you're being quite naive, the old soviets did 'everything' for pure propaganda while their engineering was years behind the west, naturally you'll assume this is sour grapes or such when the reality is everything I just stated (and more) is found in the Kamanin diaries, this was a journal kept from one of their top managers from around 1960 to the early 70's, even they knew the Americans were years ahead of them while acknowledging that because their "firsts' were strictly for propagandic value very little of the real work needed to get to the moon was ever done
Mighty Saturn 5 Sorry... you are mistaken. Of all the accomplishments in the space race, America was only first in one. USSR had the first satellite, animal in orbit, man in orbit, woman in orbit, spacewalk, first craft on the moon and on another planet (Venus) and on Mars, and the first space station, and is the only country to have completed a manned transfer from one space station to another. Sadly, the only thing we Americans accomplished first was landing a man on the moon, and this was chosen explicitly for propaganda purposes as the USSR was focusing its space program elsewhere.
Another incredible video Paul.
Thank you for your unbiased and very informative videos. Unfortunately, there is a tendency for only negative news about Russia and former USSR in Western media, completely forgetting this kind of Soviet legacy.
The Soviets took a similar approach with the B-29, reverse-engineering it to fill a gap as the Tu-4 and then improving on it drastically once they had solved the immediate capability gap with the US. If the two countries had been able to find a way to trust each other and work together, just imagine what they would've been capable of...
Soviet engineering with the American budget, best combo ever.
@Rage Quit because only americans work in spacex
@Rage Quit american engineering is what makes challenger fall.
They wouldnt have achievedd anything. Unfortunately, that is the truth about human nature, if someone has a stick, you would want a bigger stick to match it up. Look at the space exploration and budget that both Space Agencies had during the cold war, because they were trying to beat each other. The moment USSR fell, what happened to NASA's budget? You see the problem there. Competition gives an incentive to work, without competition nothing happens. It is ironic that most of the development comes during wars not during paece time, because war warrants a necessity to develop it. Just look at everything good that came from WW2. The rockets, the ICBMS, the supersonic planes, nuclear energy, advanced weaponry, Peace (to some parts of the world). Do you think there would have been nukes without WW2, or the sexy planes that fly around without cold war, or the space race, the moon landings and all the space exploration without the cold war.?
People who say "if they had worked together we would have progressed much more", are naiive who dont understand human nature at all. Just remember, that humans seek competition, just look at US. how many launch vehicles it had during cold war? How many launch vehicles the Soviets had. Just loo at the state of US now? How many launch vehicles they have now? They rely on private companies to put their astronauts to space. The same way, Russia only has Proton and Soyuz and now Angara, but look at the state of their other frequently used lasunchers, they are nowhere to be seen.
I personally think that the fall of the Soviet Union had the worst impact on the progress and development of the world. If both kept competiting, it would have pushed us to develop much faster.
Unmanned and automatic wow
Synthusiast Impressive indeed
That would be some what impressive by todays standards, even more impressive when you think about this shuttle using computer technology from the 80s.
The US shuttles could be landed remotely too......
And they actually flew many missions....
@Phillip Habsburg true. but I may be missing something, however I haven't heard anything about completely autonomous system on US shuttle which could land it on its own. there is a difference between the remote control and autonomous onboard system. and that system at that time could make decisions according to situation. as it was said, during the automatic landing it did detect crosswinds and corrected the flight trajectory. It really is impressive that they could make it possible with the technology level they had.
@@phillip_iv_planetking6354 remote control system is like flying drone, the person who have the "remote" controls it but autonomus system is like robot, can land on its own, can detect crosswind and other problem to delay the landing and do another turn
I ve been 15 and seen the landing of Buran in Baikonur. Never forget that footage on TV News with two fighters accompanying landing Buran.
3:57 thank you for not showing this. Respect to all; in every country; who reach for the stars.
Paul, I'd argue that the Russians did the right thing. Putting people a couple of meters *beside* thousands of gallons of explosive rocket fuel and oxidizer, and below falling ice caused by fueling cryogenic fuel and oxidizer efficiently killed 14 American astronauts, more than the Soviet manned space program, plus the rest of the American space program combined. The basic design never should have left the napkin in Denny's. Respect for minimal safety standards should have limited the concept to being a cruel joke and it never should have left the restaurant.
We Americans love to criticize the Soviet Union/Russia for casual disregard for safety, when they always had higher standards than we did. Accidents happen. Foreseeable accidents, resulting from brazen disregard for safety, happen a lot more frequently.
Agreed in terms of spacecraft design, although poor safety protocols killed a lot more people on the ground in the USSR's program (look up Nedelin).
What you Overlook is the American space program gave the Soviets a HUGE jump start. And reduced thier engineering expenditure dramatically. It's easier to see ahead when you stand on the shoulders of giants. We accomplished much more considering we did the initial research and development. And at a time when there was no computer modeling or aided design. It was done with slide rule and good old American know how
@Saxxony Ger i bet you did. They sell a product for that incontinence. Yes. ANYONE can have an idea or concept. There is MUCH more involved in bringing it to fruition. Germans had a jet design. But couldn't figure out the metallurgy to make it last more than a few min in flight. While the Brits design was able to fly for thousands of hours with No noticeable issues. Their engineering worked. They found a design to function with materials avl. At the time. The Americans solved the metallurgical issues. The very foundational problems. Might want to start at step one.
@Saxxony Ger typical leftist. Euro trash. Potty mouth. Can't have an adult conversion, debate or simply disagree without devolving into personal insults and disgusting references. Must be sad to be so bitter. Good luck with that. But I'm donewith this.
To me the big difference is that in the USSR things were done the best they could regardless of anything else. In the USA things were made and still are done guided mainly by business. That's capitalism in action. Russia adopted it and lost almost everything in the way. They've won wonderful things like a huge mafia and McDonald's to say it fast. Good for them. Unfortunately no one seems to realise that Socialism had good things. Of course it also jad many bad ones but this doesn't preclude the first.
Very good video, I remember this first Buran flight... It was Great as never before, and never after!
Wow, the only negative I've found for the fall of the Iron Curtain. That entire system was nuts - could have been soo cool!
It suffered from the same problems that STS did - the stupid military got way to much say in the design process. The requirements were completely nuts for a manned space ship: it was overblown for a crew ferry vehicle, unnecessarily complex for a cargo ship and simply not necessary at all for a heavy lift system. In the end it shared the same fate as the STS: a marvel of technology with no real purpose (or rather too many at once) that was too expensive to develop and complex to operate.
They should have ditched the Buran and went straight to Energia 2 (which was the original Energia design that had to be scaled down due to schedule and budget overruns with the orbiter). Just imagine this: the Soviets could have had a fully reusable system more powerful than SpaceX's BFR by 1990...
Lunatic Cringe Look into the Soviet lunar program that they intended to use with the N1 (mentioned in the video). It's horrifically insane.
I'm happy that this huge KGB labor camp called ussr collapsed, so I could leave it forever and never return to its kgb descendant called russia.
Private firms can do much much better, without enslaving anyone, and also cheaper.
So, we might say that the end of the Cold War and the fall of the USSR actually retarded the development of space technology, and did so considerably. Oh well. I suppose that, economically, it was all due for a shake-up anyway. We need systems that are more affordable and all to use, and as this happens and launches become more common, something that is more environmentally friendly as well.
First Cynic The N-1 has many genious parts, the only insane part was the insanely low budget.
Awesome video as always! May I give some Russian pronunciation advice? enErgia (second 'e' stressed), glushkO ('o' stressed), korol'Ov ('o' stressed, and 'l' is soft like in 'lonely). Of course, that's not a crucial thing. I do it just in case you look for some feedback ;-)
These videos are the best! Really interesting. Keep 'em coming,
Jack
I didn't know that Buran was landed on automatic and the Energia II concept is also completely new to me. Good video!
So much for the theory that Russians can only copy
Wow! Extremely informative video. Thanks for great work!
8:42 Energia does what the N1 don't.
mostly due to fewer, better engines. the N-1 was mostly undone by the fact rocket engines had to be shipped in on trains, and their complex plumbing didn't respond well to being jostled around for a few days before beign used.
What an incredible technical achievement. Seems odd that we are only getting close to the vision of Energia 2. Those gliding boosters are insane.
Great video!! I have read a little bit about Buran before, but haven't found much. You had information I have read before (for example, I don't think I've ever heard about the turbofan engines). I found your channel recently and have watched several videos already. You may also be interested in Vintage Space. Amy also has some great content that often complements your videos well.
This channel has to be one of the most interesting that I've subscribed to in the last 3 or 4 yrs or so.... Every new upload is either new info or a complement to a subject I was familiar with already... Thnk you for your channel....
Absolutely love these techno punched historical vids. Packed with knowledge, they are done extremely well. Thanks for putting these together.
I saw the Buran in the Speyer Museum and its overwelming! Im so impressed by the people of that time. its a shame that we wasted that much time to come back to a real space "race " again. i really looking forward to all those cool missions and flights in the upcoming time. and to you, mr. droid, i really enjoy your videos and espacially your shirts ;)
Good video man you got my thought machine ticking. And well put together. Thanks
Excellent little vid. Thank you. I knew a lot about Buran and Energia, but hadn't seen the visualizations for the Energia 2. Very impressive. I always thought it was a better conceptualized machine due to the simplicity of system, it's purely liquid propellant set-up and clearly having learned from the Shuttle's misgivings. In reality the Shuttle always showed of it's almost instantly redundant covert and largely military pedigree. I loved the shuttle and can watch launch vids for hours, but the clean bright burn of Energia is a thing to behold. A pity it never had a chance to develop properly, mistakes and problems included, and historically speaking very sad that there was not better quality film footage of its construction and launches. But communism. like capitalism, has always had it's victims. Thanks again.
It was indeed the better Concept. But after seeing both of them, I must say the Space Shuttle was much more comfortable. The Cockpit of the Buran is really small.
You can see the same clean bright burn of Atlas V with RD-180 on first stage (at least some of them). It has the same family engine and the engine has the same burn process.
> _I must say the Space Shuttle was much more comfortable. The Cockpit of the Buran is really small._
The comfort thing is a recurring theme in Soviet design (...of, like, everything). It seems that, while the structural components were often expected to withstand many times the typical stress-and proven designs had successfully demonstrated this approach-when it came to ergonomics, as long as the bare minimum was met, it was considered acceptable at that point and no further attention was given to improving quality of life. If you've ever been to a typical Soviet kitchen, you know how it is. Almost like the people using the design don't matter, ha!
Nowadays, with the open market competition (where applicable) forcing manufacturers to cater to the customers' needs, the comfort issue has mostly been solved, but the quality and durability dropped dramatically to compensate. In government-funded industries such as the defense and aerospace, there has been no significant improvement yet the quality drop is just as bad, if not worse than in the others. I swear, this land must have been cursed.
Love your videos and your shirt 😁
www.atomretro.com/product_info.cfm?product_id=9278&d=CHENASKI-RETRO-SIXTIES-MOD-DOT-OP-ART-SHIRT
I really enjoy watching your videos. They are always well made and packed with interesting information. It also seems like there is a lot of researching going into the making of one of these. Keep up the good work.
Ah, Buran, my favorite rocket.
Rocket is Energia. Buran is a "space plane"
It's not a rocket
Buran is a shuttle
Damn that was amazing! Phenomenal short doc!
Make ALL your videos this way with this quality and depth. WOW. Fantastic job.
Love Curious Droid videos. Always well researched and superbly presented. A marvelous antidote to all the conspiracy theory rubbish and pseudo science garbage on RUclips.
Would also consider thunderf00t, great channel.
That Energia 2.0 is SOOO Kerbal! Dammit! It would have been impressive to see that launch - and land!
here you go
ruclips.net/video/b6GG8KHDjZk/видео.html
@@voron27 I know that video, and it's not kerbal :-)
Droid, this is fascinating. I've only seen a couple or so of your videos, but that was enough to make me an admirer. You're making RUclips what it was meant to be, instead of the travesty that it has ended up becoming.
A certain sad irony that the roof was weighed down by ... snow.
Shame such a prize was lost
Is it a pun on the "Snowstorm/Blizzard" thing?
Rain.
r/puns
@@igorsmihailovs52 yes
The Buran programming was amazing in that time too
I'm really enjoying the series of videos on the Russian and American manned space programs. I'm learning a lot that was never discussed at the time! Thank you and keep up the great work!
Brilliant video, thanks for sharing.
The Soviets most of the time were ahead of the USA in the so-called _Space Race,_ despite working on a shoestring budget.
John Burns
Is that a joke? They fell behind in the mid 60s and were never really competitive in any area after that, except maybe for space stations, which they turned to after their lunar program collapsed.
J Shepard
Most of the _firsts_ were done by the Soviets. Don't take my word for it.
@@johnburns4017 Were they? And were their firsts necessarily significant?
Vostoks 3 and 4 in 1962, and 5 and 6 in 1963, were each launched so they would be in orbit at the same time. Soviet propaganda strongly suggested that they rendezvoused with each other. They did not. In each case, the spacecraft were in different orbits that only brought them within several miles of each other. Vostok 6 was widely touted for being the first flight of a woman in space. So what? It was of no scientific relevance, she did not pilot her capsule, it was automated, and they didn't fly another woman for more than twenty years. Even today, they have flown a grand total of four. So I would say that the fact that they put Valentina Thereshkova in a capsule is meaningless.
In 1964, in response to the impending Gemini Program, the Soviets conducted their Voskhod Program. This consisted of two flights in modified Vostok capsules. Because Gemini was going to be a two man craft, they stuffed three men in to Voskhod 1. In order to do it, they had to have them lying on their sides, one behind the other, without space suits, and take out every possible piece of equipment. They arbited for 24 hours, doing and accomplishing nothing, and landed. Voskhod 2 had a crew of two and accomplished the first space walk. It was nearly a disaster because Leonov's suit ballooned up and he almost couldn't get back in the spacecraft.
Between that time, and January of 1969, the Soviets attempted exactly two manned flights, Soyuz 1, in which Komorov was killed, and Soyuz 3, in October of '68, which rendezvoused with, but failed to dock with, the unmanned Soyuz 2. In January of 1969, Soyuz's 4 and 5 rendezvoused and docked, and two men spacewalked from 4 to 5. That might have seemed mighty impressive if it had not come barely three weeks after Apollo 8 circumnavigated the Moon.
In that same span of time, we conducted 12 manned space flights, in which we achieved the first rendezvous, and docking. We did those things multiple times, we performed spacewalks, and we maneuvered in orbit, all in a program of research to learn the skills necessary to go the Moon, each flight building on what had been learned in the previous ones. This all culminated in Apollo 8, but, of course, Apollo 8 was not the culmination.
The next Soviet manned flight was in October of '69, when they launched three Soyuz craft, with the intention of a triple rendezvous, and one of them filming the other two docking. That, again, might have been very impressive if the United States had not already landed on the Moon by then.
The United States has explored every planet in the Solar System. The Russians have landed probes on Venus, but, to my knowledge, have yet send a successful probe to Mars. The US has launched multiple orbiting observatories, the Russians, not so much.
And, of course, looking forward, the Russians have ceased flying their Proton booster, and have no scheduled flights of the new Angara rocket. They have lost all of the international launch business they once dominated. Their Soyuz rocket will now be limited to a few domestic payloads per year, including ISS supply runs. The Soyuz capsule will continue to carry Russian crew to the ISS, but they will soon lose their contract to carry NASA astronauts. They are developing no new rockets or spacecraft and have no plans for major unmanned probes. The US, on the other hand, is developing multiple, advanced and reusable boosters and six different manned spacecraft. One of them, SpaceX's BFR, will, like the Space Shuttle, be a true space ship, capable of multiple, varied missions. It will be far more advanced than the Shuttle, and will make Soyuz look like a biplane.
@@odysseusrex5908
As I wrote, _"Most of the_ *_firsts_* _were done by the Soviets. Don't take my word for it."_
@@johnburns4017 So, you can't rebut anything I said.
So let me get this straight, the USSR built their own space shuttle with a higher payload capacity without solid boosters, an ability to fly like a plane by itself, had a functional abort system, nailed its first test flight and was able to land in a weather situation with a powered second attempt battling winds which would have destroyed/killed the American shuttle/crew making the USA look like a joke, and was not canceled because of design/budget but the fall of the USSR?
this was a massive accomplishment but probably at least somewhat linked to the collapse, as the budget wasn't much of a concern when it came to making huge impressive accomplishments as propaganda for the soviets - not that America didn't do the same, just with greater economic efficiencies. Though, I can't exactly know this for certain since we do tend to blow a ton of money on military hardware; we have our graft issue as well. The Afghanistan war was another reason for the fall; again, trying to take on a huge project that got more and more expensive, in part due to our involvement. Had their economy been better managed, they might have lasted far longer or even turned into a China-like system.
The Buran had ejection seats for pilot and copilot, as did the first Shuttle flights. In either case they could only be used during the first 90 seconds of flight after which they were unusable and the other abort options would be chosen. The Shuttle carried it's main engines back for reuse whereas the Buran engines were all single use and not recovered. None of the Energia was reusable, the Shuttle disposed only the external tank and reused everything else including the SRB's. If Buran had ever become operational it's possible the US would have developed an STS 2.0, we'll never know.
@@pi.actualI heard that refueling the shuttles SRBs was more expensive then just making new ones. Also the shuttle program was not cheap or affordable at all (compared to what they were hoping for atleast).
this channel is incredible. thanks for the videos!
I love the idea of reusable boosters that come down with folded wings like airplanes.
Looking at the Soviets' advances in the 50s, and the Buran, as compared to the Nedelin disaster and the 1969 N1 pad fallback accident, I wonder if the Soviets (or even Roscosmos) could have consistently beaten the Americans in the space race, if only their space program hadn't been mired in CPSU politics and bureaucracy (e.g. rushing projects to be completed before the anniversary of the 1917 revolution or Lenin's birthday, etc.), as opposed to NASA/ESA where the political leadership gave the engineers more time to prepare missions and will authorize any requested delays within reason (popular belief is that STS-51-L got rushed by Reagan so the launch could coincide with the 1986 SOTU address, but I'm skeptical that was really the case)
STS-51L was part of a larger problem that developed within the STS program. NASA had promised Congress low costs, and the only way to get the cost lower was to have a higher launch rate, which meant rushing everything and scrimping on tracking down problems such as O-ring burn-through. What happened to Challenger could have happened on several previous missions launched in cold weather, the crew of 51L just happened to win the bad luck lottery that day. Same thing with Columbia; NASA had problems with debris shedding from the very first shuttle launch, and incorrectly determined it would not be a problem.
@Helium: Yep, Columbia and Challenger failed in the same wrongheaded management mindset. Instead of fixing a problem on critical systems, they assumed because there wasn't catastrophic failure in previous missions, it was okay to ignore the problem.
chrimony How were the problems with Challenger and Columbia obvious from previous launches? Thats actually not what Helium said. With your management mindset nothing would ever be accomplished.
@Obvious: In both cases the problems were known. They were ignored because they didn't cause critical failures. If management hadn't done that, they wouldn't have killed the crew of two missions and destroyed two shuttles. The night before the Challenger disaster, the engineers of the O-rings convinced management at Morton-Thiokol to contact NASA and try to get the launch scrapped. After facing heavy criticism and resistance from NASA, management overrode the engineers and proceeded with the launch.
chrimony Thats not what you originally said.... "they assumed because there wasn't catastrophic failure in previous missions." The issues that caused the failure in Challenger and Columbia were not present on previous launches... Do you know why Challenger and Columbia failed? Name me the previous mission these problems were relevant.
The Energia was a really beautiful and powerful rocket! I'm not sure why the Russians did not revive it (now that they have again a need for super heavy lift capability) instead of going for a new design like the Yenisei and the Don. (Although don't get me wrong, I'm super stoked for these 2 new developments! :) )
Энергию с пакетной схемой не нужно возрождать в том виде в каком она была в конце восьмидесятых годов
Great machine from great nation and beautiful Engineering minds
A Psychedelic shirt :)
Thanks for all your videos
www.atomretro.com/product_info.cfm?product_id=9278&d=CHENASKI-RETRO-SIXTIES-MOD-DOT-OP-ART-SHIRT
Oh man i just looked at it and it's like there's a hole in the video of WOW :o
I will give 7 dollar s for that exact shirt!
Paul you are an awesome storyteller. I absolutely loved this video. Keep these good science videoes coming. Science is King.
10:37 WTF!!!!!? GENIUS!
How sad is that? Lack of money destroyed mankind dreams. Imagine if the world would work together what they could reached. But sadly it will never happen. What a pitty man. Mankind stupidity kills all progress. It's heartbleeding, all this know how lost in dust... Very painful to watch I could cry.
What left? Small private mini-starship with the size of a fly... Ok, I go to cry.