I’ve seen many videos about this program, I’m happy you decided to cover it as your professionalism and editing makes these stories much more interesting.
Yeh. So was the sneaky guys that got the photo of this guys thumbnail. No mention of them in the description. I didn't watch the clip to give this guy a view.
Depends on how often you see it. I used to drive along the Buran static-test mockup for almost a decade (when it was parked on the embankment), it was just another piece of "nothing to see here" street furniture.
It was meant to be a whole lot more capable system than the space shuttle. The Energia rocket that launched it far outclassed the boosters of the shuttle. That’s why the Energia rocket motors are still used today.
Fantastic video, Jake! 🚀 Thanks for inviting me to interview, and your summary beginning at 14:35 was on point. It captured the essence of an important part of human space exploration.
The graffiti is so unfortunate. It would be bad enough tagging the building, but the shuttle itself? It's a piece of history, not your blank canvas. Glad to see the owners did what they could to paint over it
I feel rather the opposite. If they didn't want to have it become part of a abandoned wasteland and get graffiti all over it, they shouldn't have left it there. I for one would wonder what the graffiti was supposed to mean. And let's be honest, the original builders was Soviet Russia. And Russia these days isn't exactly a great nation anyhow. It deserved it in my honest opinion. At least then it's existence could still have meaning, rather then being a very expensive pile of junk.
@@robertjenkins6132this is definitely добро. While the majority of the letters are all block style in this person’s art, this person deviated with the “D”. You don’t write Russian by hand in any other way than in script form (aka cursive). The handwritten script «д» looks just like a Roman uppercase “D” as seen here! The best example is the Dynamo Moscow sports teams. Take a look at the logo and you’ll see the overlap!
No matter what happened, the engineers who worked on the programme should be proud of their work. It's a shame the government wasn't behind them the whole way, or it might have been in use even after the end of the USSR.
They didn't really have the money to spend on it. I'm sure the USSR government was eager to get a leg-up over the US, but that kind of project would've cost money they just didn't have.
The first time I ever heard of _Buran_ was almost 30 years ago, when I was a systems administrator at a large ISP in New Zealand. We were using _"Star Trek_ ship names" for our naming scheme for servers, and I needed a name for a new AAA (authentication, authorization, and accounting) server. I browsed a list of ship names I got from USENET (anyone else remember that?), and in the section covering pre-Federation ships, it listed the Russian _Buran_ as being in the _Challenger_ class. I didn't twig then that that meant the _space shuttle_ _Challenger,_ but I thought that _Challenger_ class sounded great for an AAA server, so "Buran" it was. It was only in the 2000s that I learned what the Buran actually was.
....it's a great soviet story, steal the plans, rush to keep up. When the soviet space director was confronted that their shuttle looked just like the Rockwell design he simple stated that the principals of aerodynamics are the same on both sides of the iron curtain...hahaha, what a joke, totally stole the design and failed,,,,,......
I kind of love the implication that Starfleet doesn't bother distinguishing between which pre-Federation Earth nations built a spacecraft as long as it fit similar mission parameters. Seems fitting.
@@wokewokerman5280 They'd ripped off a lot, yes, but Buran wasn't a copy. The main engine was place on the tank, and the shuttle could actually fly, with jet engines, not just glide.
@@ErikBramsen ...right, they ripped off plenty, they didn't have the same engine tech we did, and the jet engines were there to assist the glide because they were unsure of the glide profile (poor computer modeling/wind tunnel resources)and may need the thrust to reach the landing zone during testing. 1000 different ways to build a space plane back then, it was a "soviet" copy....too bad politics of those days killed it, would have been cool to see it do missions...
I've been in the Buran prototype OK-GLI built in 1984 and was used for testing gliding flight and landing after reentry into the atmosphere. It's in the Technik Museum in Speyer Germany. It was a pretty surreal experience. You get to walk through it and see the control panel. If I can remember right, it was lit red. If you go to the sister Technik Museum in Sinsheim, they have a Concord, and Tupolev Tu-144. They're pretty cool to walk through as well.
Not only is the original Buran Space Shuttle gone, but the actual aircraft that transported it, the Antonov 225, is also gone. The Mriya was destroyed during the early days of the Russian invasion of Ukraine during the Russo-Ukrainian War.
@@jsthereforfun1648Insurance payouts more profitable than one-off cargo flights. Imagine getting all your lost revenue with zero operational expense thanks to your insurance policy paying out.
@@jsthereforfun1648 Except it was already there for repairs when Russia started the war and it was too risky to move and/or get back to working order before Russia quite purposefully targeted its hangar with a firebomb.
@@lotto77102 What makes you think Russia started the war? Do you think Germany started WW2? For context I have no idea if Russia started the war or not but Germany sure as hell didn't so...
The video bald and bankrupt did was really cool. Shows the actual journey and how crazy the inside of the building actually is. Surprised you didn't use some of his footage as he gives great commentary
Bald was banned from Russia after this made it up the chain in Russia. He was interviewed about his intentions. His high level Russian linguistics probably didn't help much.
@zapfanzapfan I learned more about Russia, Russia culture, and Russian people from his RUclips than anywhere else. Hopefully it was a temporary ban and he will be able to return someday. He would get in a taxi, go to random village, and walk, look around and talk to people with no idea what to expect.
It didn't. The buran core design was largely stolen from NASA's space shuttle program. It's really just a variant of the same. Ultimately everyone came to the same conclusion, the shuttle system's design is inherently flawed and the heat shield is prone to damage during launch due to the shuttle being mounted to the side of the booster system.
Been a fan as long as the channels been around and to this day nothing makes me as happy as a new episode of abandon. Thanks for all your hard work Jake!
It's an amazing achievement that never saw its potential. Some of the features like full unmanned flights and it's ability to flight under it's own power like a normal aircraft is crazy!
The Space Shuttle can also fly autonomously, but it never had the need to because it flew with astronauts. Many of the return to launch site scenarios are autonomous. I recommend looking up some simulations of those aborts because they are absolutely insane.
I was trying to sum up how I felt and Chris really did it for me: all that science and engineering, wasted. I grew up in Huntsville, AL. It's a city practically dedicated to Von Braun and the space program so this topic is a little close to home for me. Congratulations Jake for once again making me love a lost moment in time.
Very nicely done! As a space enthusiast who’s been fairly obsessive about this kind of thing for decades, you covered it very well. My only quibble is the popular misconception that this was called “The Buran Program.” It wasn’t. “Buran” was just the call sign for that particular orbiter. The actual program itself was called the “VKK Space Orbiter program. (“VKK” in Russian meaning “Air to Space Ship”) The soviets assigned callsigns to all their spacecraft, but they tended to cycle through the same handfull over and over again. There were four or five Soyuz spacecraft that used the same callsign prior to the shuttle. That’s just a quibble, though. I do have some additional info for anyone interested: For starters, the Soviets had a somewhat fatalistic view of American space technology. Even though they had a massive head start, we surpassed them in 7 years, and they were never able to catch up. After which they pretty much decided that whatever the US decided to do, it could do, and if the US decided to do something, well, it *must* have a good reason, or else the US wouldn’t be doing it. So as you pointed out, the Soviet shuttle program basically only existed because we had announced one. The Soviet program had just a tiny budget, so they did some clever things. They knew they could never build reliable SRBs, so they went with liquid ones instead (LRBs). Making reusable engines was just way too difficult and expensive, so they decided to use disposable ones. This meant that the orbiter itself didn’t need other have any engine, *but* the physical design of their shuttle was openly lifted from the US. They saved money by just waiting for us to do all the wind tunnel testing, and when we had a design, they just yoinked it at a fraction of the cost. [Dishonest, but very clever] Of course this meant they got stuck with the delta wings that neither they nor we needed, but that’s another story. The thing is, the American shuttle program never made a ton of sense. People to this day believe it was more economical than the ‘wasteful’ Saturn V, but in fact it cost the “Economical” shuttle six times as much per kilogram of cargo put in orbit. And as you pointed out, NASA was expected to do between 50-100 flights a year with a fleet of about a dozen or sixteen shuttles. The Soviets were right to fear the thing would be used by the US military. Our Air Force requisitioned its own squadron of shuttles to be launched out of Vandenberg AFB in California. Eventually, however, the USAF got concerned about the reliance on SRBs, which, in their experience, were just too damn dangerous to be relied on in a manned vehicle, so the Air Force pulled out. They did have a launch facility and did hope to launch a few “DOD” missions in later years, though none of these ever came to pass. The American shuttle was capable of autonomous flight. The only thing it couldn’t do was put down the landing gear and I have no idea why not. The Astronauts themselves insisted on it. Indeed it made many flights where the crew really didn’thave to do anything other than push the button to lower the wheels. I don’t understand it. Where the program really excelled was the Energia rocket booster, which was kinda brilliant. It could be launched as a core, or with two or four LRBs depending on the cargo you wanted to put in orbit. It could be launched with or without the orbiter on the side, with a huge payload capacity if you went without the orbiter. . I’m not surprised their shuttle program failed, shuttles are just kind of a bad idea, but the Energia being abandoned still surprises me. It was an amazing rocket. Oh: one detail you missed: The Buran only flew once, but the Energia flew twice. The first time was a year earlier when it was supposed to deliver an (illegal) weapons platform to the MIR space station. The platform malfunctioned, however, and went ass-over-teakettle into the pacific ocean. The second Energia flight was the Buran mission, which went off without a hitch. Russia attempted for more than a decade to get foreign investors to back restarting the VKK Space Orbiter program, but there were no takers.
Its just so sad, these should have been in museums! I know its not our place to talk about how other countries should take care of their history, but these could have been a great tourist attraction.
Love seeing all the old artistic depictions of the shuttle program. it's cool to see how close they were, and how similar they are to Space X's star ship program today.
Well, the building was in Kazakhstan, not in Russia. And by the time Russia got any semblance of economy back after the collapse of USSR it was too late anyway
Yeah, that came as a surprise to me when I saw it in the video. I had always thought the Russians put it on static display somewhere in their territory.
After the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991, the Russian Federation prioritized other space endeavors, such as the Mir space station and collaboration with the International Space Station (ISS). The Buran program was officially canceled in 1993.
I love learning about abandoned places, not just malls but also shuttles and regular stores. I have a suggestion for a mall that isn't 100 precent abandoned but is slowly dying: Northgate Mall in Layfette, LA. It's a really sad story. At least other malls in that same area are kind of thriving [but probably not for much longer].
This needs to be said: the American space shuttle was also capable of autonomous flight - the onboard computers constantly analyzed the flight trajectory and suggested the optimal flight path on a screen, in the cockpit, and the pilot followed that path with his hand on the stick. The reason for such arrangement was to have the pilot have a feel of the stick in case of smth.
this is freaky cool, i just had a bit of a barrage of a few videos of exploration (okay, only two in past day or so) of the Buran shuttles and now one from BSF ... well put together video!!
Hi Jake: I want to take a minute and thank you for the videos you create. I discovered the urbex videos several months ago and I've gotten hooked on more than seeing abandoned buildings - but also the history. Usually I'm the one asking questions or finding out more about the history of the building and sharing it in my reply. That was until I found your videos. I have to say I'm very impressed with the level of detail you provide. It is clear you spend a great deal of time producing each video. So many of the urbex videos I've seen it is the usual: Sounds of crunching as the person or persons is walking through the building, looking for something interesting or "cool" to show the viewers. But your videos tell a story and that I greatly appreciate. I watched the one update video in which you talked about making these videos for 10 years? That is amazing!! Do you have plans for becoming a filmmaker or creating documentaries like the one film you made, as a full-time profession? You have a real gift and as a young man, you certainly have a "bright" future ahead of you, if this is what you choose to do. What I can tell you from experience is that there are hints of what you are meant to do / meant to become / what will give you the most fulfillment -- early in life. How do I know? Some of my earliest memories were that of buying textbooks I could not read, along with a chalkboard, and pretending I was teaching my stuffed animals. Flash-forward all these years later and I have been a professor for 20 years, after a career for 20 years in Corporate America as a Manager of Training & Development. Back to the video, again: Good work!! Sincerely, Bruce
Wow 94th abandoned, honestly Jake your incredible with the amount of work you put into your videos. Can’t wait for the 100th, I’m sure you’re not gonna disappoint. Keep up the great content and stay safe. 🩵
It would be hearbrakeing to have worked on this and never seen it come to fruition, but at least the engineers and scientists that designed and built these knew that what they built, worked. Thanks for a really great video, I was always interested in the buran program from seeing images as a kid and then snapshots and videos from the explores that visited, but never really knew the history and how many were made. I leaned a few things today. Thanks again.
Mr sheik I do enjoy your work honestly seeing all these abandoned areas. I wonder if there is another append era in Florida, because that's where I live. I live in Jacksonville There's always a lot of bad places that need to be checked. If I remember correctly, you didn't want on a marine land. And thanks to that, my where I live, we know not to go there. So thanks to you, we know it. That's not a fun place to go. Thanks you so much for serious. Thank you. In any case, can't wait to see the rest of your work. By the way, we still have a Ruby Tuesday here in Jacksonville Florida. If you want to come down, it's still here.
@@blaked8438 I might have been 10 or so, how lucky we were to see it in Sydney of all places. These days the land would be used for apartment towers haha
I was doing some reading years ago on the US Space Shuttle and found an interview with a NASA engineer who worked on the Buran in the 90's. Apparently, there was a lot of collabs between Russia and the US at the time trying to keep them proped up and prevent them from collapsing entirely. He spent months working with his Russian counterparts who developed and built it, and went through a lot of the documentation. The part that really blew my mind was he said there was almost nothing on it taken from the Space Shuttle. As much as people say it was just a copy, or made from stolen plans, according to him that was all false. They just happened to figure out that was the best design for the purpose using the technology of the time. Going through everything, he said aside from the general outside look, almost nothing inside was anything like the USSS. And the things that were seemed like obvious "Here's the best place to put this." I wish I had saved it, or remembered where I found it. I think it was on the US National Archives site. But it was fascinating seeing a Soviet program that was completely independent with nothing taken from the West being an almost identical result.
Great video. As a kid I was fascinated with the space shuttle. Exploring this abandoned project would be incredible. To think people snuck in to see and touch such a classified piece of technology from our Cold War enemy.
Little unusual request but can you do a video on the town of Lowell, Arizona. There’s talk inverters are rebuying in to keeping the town “stuck in time.” Love your vids, keep up the awesome work.
I visited the Technik Museum Speyer in Germany last summer and the Buran test vehicle (OK-GLI) is incredible to see in person! It’s far bigger seeing it in person than through an image. I highly recommend it, and one should also visit the sister Technik Museum in Sinsheim.
This is the perfect example how amazing and insane the human race can be. They managed to build such a marble of technology, even improved the original design just to let it sit there to rot in the end. You really need to let that think in. They managed to let this craft fly around the earth twice and let it land on its own on a runway that is tiny compared to the size of the earth and all of that in the 90s. It took another 30 years for a country to do this miracle of technology again. Now its even more impressive since they are landing boosters on an even tinier space. But this is for me the pure definition of insanity that people did left this kind of technology in a hanger just to rot.
It shows the insanity of governments, especially centralized governments. No private sector orgnanization would be wasteful enough to create something that cost billions to just let it rot. Only an unaccountable government can do something this stupid.
Hello Jake 👋🏼 I've been watching and loving your videos for over 5 years now and am usually not someone that comments on videos but today it's fitting for the topic of the video 🙌🏼 I live in Ludwigshafen about 30 minutes away from the Technik Museum in Speyer and me and my family have visited the museum about 2-3 times throughout each year for as long as I can remember. Being able to see the Buran and even go inside of it is truly an amazing experience that I enjoy every single time we visit. I also remember that my mom let me stay home from school the day the Buran was towed on the river Rhein so we could go and see it 🙈 more specifically I remember slipping on the wet stones of the riverbank and slicing open my leg so I actually didn't SEE the Aircraft because I was crying so much 🙈🙈 But by far my favorite experience of the museum has to be the Lufthansa 747 you mentioned. Seeing the inside of the aircraft and being able to go everywhere even the parts you're prohibited to go to as a passenger. Although stepping inside the 747 feels pretty weird because it's a bit slanted and moves a bit in the wind so it's not for people with a sensitive stomach 😅 especially since you're able to walk around on the left wing (obviously caged in). Greetings from Germany 👏🏼
Fantastic as always. I recently stumbled across the abandoned Majestic Star in Gary IN on google maps. I found its boating history and eventually subsequent abandonment for an inland building. Huge facility just slapped out there to be left. Id love to see a video about something like that.
Thanks for this, I've been fascinated with Buran's abandonment and decay for years. Humorously given the Soviets military concerns for the American space shuttle, to secure funding NASA had to accommodate many USAF requirements (what one might argue were outrageous edge use cases) that ultimately may have hampered its overall operational capabilities (and cost). In the end, few if any of these requirements were used. If the Soviets were driven to equal these supposed military uses and thus copied those requirements, it might have equally contributed to Buran's end. Again, a fascinating story/history, and that the actual orbiter was crushed by a falling roof is so unfortunate.
The Buran is to the Space Shuttle, as the Concordski Tu-144 is to the Concorde. That being said, the Tu-144 was worse than Concorde, despite being bigger and faster. The Buran, though, may well have had more potential than the NASA Space Shuttle programme.
Thanks for providing link for BURAN RU. If you trully interested in that subject, i highly recomend browsing into russian section on the site, it is much bigger than english one. My favourite read from there are Yermolaev memoirs. He worked in sequrity during that only launch, and that memoirs gives great insight into USSR life and program context. Sadly, I don't know if Google translate of it make it anywhere comprehensive.
There is a Buran space shuttle in the Technical Museum in Speyer, Germany. You can actually go inside of it and it's amazing! They brought it in over the Rhine river.
The US space shuttle orbiter had an autoland system, that aspect was not unique to the Buran. However it still required a pilot to activate the autoland procedure, as with all other autonomous features. It is true that the SSO was not as advanced in all autonomous functions, but there were many automated features and further NASA plans to expand that functionality later.
the graffiti photo is the only image id ever seen of this place and i was stoked you showed it. Thats the only guy on the planet that can say he painted a space shuttle haha
Incredible really! One of the reasons it is basically a 1 for 1 copy of the US orbiter is the spaceframe plans were never top secret, so they were easily accessible and the US had basically done a lot of the hardwork in design for the Soviets. Arguably the Buran and more importantly it's Energia launch system with it's liquid fueled boosters and main stage were much superior to the US version with it's SRBs and external fuel tank.
![Seungmin "그렇게, 천천히, 우리(As we are)" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/kAzmhLHePqU/mqdefault.jpg)
I’ve seen many videos about this program, I’m happy you decided to cover it as your professionalism and editing makes these stories much more interesting.
Bald and Bankrupts journey to the location was much more fun!
Yeh. So was the sneaky guys that got the photo of this guys thumbnail. No mention of them in the description. I didn't watch the clip to give this guy a view.
It feels surreal seeing an abandoned space shuttle, especially one like this
True. Gives me post apocalyptic vibes
Depends on how often you see it. I used to drive along the Buran static-test mockup for almost a decade (when it was parked on the embankment), it was just another piece of "nothing to see here" street furniture.
One of the early US shuttle mock-up sat in a warehouse for decades abandoned.
It was meant to be a whole lot more capable system than the space shuttle. The Energia rocket that launched it far outclassed the boosters of the shuttle. That’s why the Energia rocket motors are still used today.
Worthless comment, ignorant.
Fantastic video, Jake! 🚀 Thanks for inviting me to interview, and your summary beginning at 14:35 was on point. It captured the essence of an important part of human space exploration.
The graffiti is so unfortunate. It would be bad enough tagging the building, but the shuttle itself? It's a piece of history, not your blank canvas. Glad to see the owners did what they could to paint over it
Destroyed now anyway
@@EDMLyfeThe 1k Buran orbiter was destroyed in 2002. The one that was graffitied is 2K Ptichka and is still around. Deteriorating, but still around.
@ thank you, I’ve been confused about that
I feel rather the opposite. If they didn't want to have it become part of a abandoned wasteland and get graffiti all over it, they shouldn't have left it there. I for one would wonder what the graffiti was supposed to mean. And let's be honest, the original builders was Soviet Russia. And Russia these days isn't exactly a great nation anyhow. It deserved it in my honest opinion. At least then it's existence could still have meaning, rather then being a very expensive pile of junk.
@MarijnRoorda you better not leave your car outside overnight then, could be seen as a canvas that is underutilized
For whatever it may be worth, «Буран» (Buran) means "snowstorm", "blizzard", and «Птичка» (Ptička or Ptichka) means "little bird", "birdie".
Cool to know thanks 😊
Thank you for sharing that!
What does the graffiti say at 13:21? ДОБРО? "Good"/"OK", or "Stuff"? The first letter looks like Latin uppercase D, rather than Cyrillic Д.
@@robertjenkins6132this is definitely добро. While the majority of the letters are all block style in this person’s art, this person deviated with the “D”. You don’t write Russian by hand in any other way than in script form (aka cursive). The handwritten script «д» looks just like a Roman uppercase “D” as seen here! The best example is the Dynamo Moscow sports teams. Take a look at the logo and you’ll see the overlap!
It seems that the Soviet shuttles would have had a nature-theme naming (the third was supposed to be called Baikal after Lake Baikal)
No matter what happened, the engineers who worked on the programme should be proud of their work. It's a shame the government wasn't behind them the whole way, or it might have been in use even after the end of the USSR.
Gorbatjev had other plans for people than using money on space. He was probably the most caring president they ever had, too early for his time.
It's called "running out of money". Doesn't matter what the government wants if you ru out of cash. Very dumb take
Fractional reserve currencies exist. It's just a matter of whether or not the current global order wants to exploit your country or not.
Proud of their work? What work? They stole everything from NASA. Literally.
They didn't really have the money to spend on it. I'm sure the USSR government was eager to get a leg-up over the US, but that kind of project would've cost money they just didn't have.
The first time I ever heard of _Buran_ was almost 30 years ago, when I was a systems administrator at a large ISP in New Zealand. We were using _"Star Trek_ ship names" for our naming scheme for servers, and I needed a name for a new AAA (authentication, authorization, and accounting) server. I browsed a list of ship names I got from USENET (anyone else remember that?), and in the section covering pre-Federation ships, it listed the Russian _Buran_ as being in the _Challenger_ class. I didn't twig then that that meant the _space shuttle_ _Challenger,_ but I thought that _Challenger_ class sounded great for an AAA server, so "Buran" it was. It was only in the 2000s that I learned what the Buran actually was.
....it's a great soviet story, steal the plans, rush to keep up. When the soviet space director was confronted that their shuttle looked just like the Rockwell design he simple stated that the principals of aerodynamics are the same on both sides of the iron curtain...hahaha, what a joke, totally stole the design and failed,,,,,......
Aah, the good old days where we actually gave our servers cool names.
I kind of love the implication that Starfleet doesn't bother distinguishing between which pre-Federation Earth nations built a spacecraft as long as it fit similar mission parameters. Seems fitting.
@@wokewokerman5280 They'd ripped off a lot, yes, but Buran wasn't a copy. The main engine was place on the tank, and the shuttle could actually fly, with jet engines, not just glide.
@@ErikBramsen ...right, they ripped off plenty, they didn't have the same engine tech we did, and the jet engines were there to assist the glide because they were unsure of the glide profile (poor computer modeling/wind tunnel resources)and may need the thrust to reach the landing zone during testing. 1000 different ways to build a space plane back then, it was a "soviet" copy....too bad politics of those days killed it, would have been cool to see it do missions...
I've been in the Buran prototype OK-GLI built in 1984 and was used for testing gliding flight and landing after reentry into the atmosphere. It's in the Technik Museum in Speyer Germany. It was a pretty surreal experience. You get to walk through it and see the control panel. If I can remember right, it was lit red. If you go to the sister Technik Museum in Sinsheim, they have a Concord, and Tupolev Tu-144. They're pretty cool to walk through as well.
They are indeed
Not only is the original Buran Space Shuttle gone, but the actual aircraft that transported it, the Antonov 225, is also gone. The Mriya was destroyed during the early days of the Russian invasion of Ukraine during the Russo-Ukrainian War.
It’s being rebuilt iirc with the unfinished one and parts from the one that was partially destroyed - or at least that’s their intent
Ukraine did the dumb move of placing it there even though they know Russians would bomb it
@@jsthereforfun1648Insurance payouts more profitable than one-off cargo flights. Imagine getting all your lost revenue with zero operational expense thanks to your insurance policy paying out.
@@jsthereforfun1648 Except it was already there for repairs when Russia started the war and it was too risky to move and/or get back to working order before Russia quite purposefully targeted its hangar with a firebomb.
@@lotto77102 What makes you think Russia started the war? Do you think Germany started WW2? For context I have no idea if Russia started the war or not but Germany sure as hell didn't so...
I’ve never seen an abandoned space shuttle! That’s new to me!
Me too !!!
I love Soviet Era abandoned places. Gives me S.T.A.L.K.E.R and Metro vibes
Are you covering more topics like this? I would love to see it
Oh so that's what Get Smart was referencing when naming a KAOS agent after it XD
Well said💯
Of course it would give S.T.A.L.K.E.R vibes
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is literally about Soviet catastrophe/collapse environment
Ngl I’ve been waiting for Abandoned to cover the Buran for years at this point and I’m so happy that it’s finally here
Great job Jake
The video bald and bankrupt did was really cool. Shows the actual journey and how crazy the inside of the building actually is. Surprised you didn't use some of his footage as he gives great commentary
That was a great video! Also shows it is being guarded.
고르바초프와 옐친은 쓰레기다
Bald was banned from Russia after this made it up the chain in Russia. He was interviewed about his intentions. His high level Russian linguistics probably didn't help much.
@@jbranche8024 His love of Soviet mosaics didn't help?
@zapfanzapfan I learned more about Russia, Russia culture, and Russian people from his RUclips than anywhere else. Hopefully it was a temporary ban and he will be able to return someday. He would get in a taxi, go to random village, and walk, look around and talk to people with no idea what to expect.
The Buran and it's Energia launch system did not deserve to die forgotten in a hangar in Kazakhstan
It didn't. The buran core design was largely stolen from NASA's space shuttle program. It's really just a variant of the same. Ultimately everyone came to the same conclusion, the shuttle system's design is inherently flawed and the heat shield is prone to damage during launch due to the shuttle being mounted to the side of the booster system.
Yes it does.
@@justinatwood8728Everything I've ever read about it anywhere said that it was not merely a variant of the space shuttle, but ok.
@@justinatwood8728the video goes into some f the major differences yet morons still shout "stolen" because "it looks similar". Clown😂
In that case , the USSR didn't deserve to be disbanded.
Abandoned offices/file rooms/computers are some of the most potent sources of that feeling that gives urban exploration its main appeal
Been a fan as long as the channels been around and to this day nothing makes me as happy as a new episode of abandon. Thanks for all your hard work Jake!
That means a lot, thanks for watching!
It's an amazing achievement that never saw its potential. Some of the features like full unmanned flights and it's ability to flight under it's own power like a normal aircraft is crazy!
Unmanned autonomous space flight in the 80s is insane to me.
The Space Shuttle can also fly autonomously, but it never had the need to because it flew with astronauts. Many of the return to launch site scenarios are autonomous. I recommend looking up some simulations of those aborts because they are absolutely insane.
I've seen bits and bobs about this program over the years. Nothing like the research and detail you have put into this one. Hats off. :)
I was trying to sum up how I felt and Chris really did it for me: all that science and engineering, wasted. I grew up in Huntsville, AL. It's a city practically dedicated to Von Braun and the space program so this topic is a little close to home for me. Congratulations Jake for once again making me love a lost moment in time.
I miss living in Huntsville and all my homies that are still there. That place is awesome
The one in Speyer is quite amazing, you can even go inside!
Very nicely done! As a space enthusiast who’s been fairly obsessive about this kind of thing for decades, you covered it very well. My only quibble is the popular misconception that this was called “The Buran Program.” It wasn’t. “Buran” was just the call sign for that particular orbiter. The actual program itself was called the “VKK Space Orbiter program. (“VKK” in Russian meaning “Air to Space Ship”)
The soviets assigned callsigns to all their spacecraft, but they tended to cycle through the same handfull over and over again. There were four or five Soyuz spacecraft that used the same callsign prior to the shuttle.
That’s just a quibble, though. I do have some additional info for anyone interested:
For starters, the Soviets had a somewhat fatalistic view of American space technology. Even though they had a massive head start, we surpassed them in 7 years, and they were never able to catch up. After which they pretty much decided that whatever the US decided to do, it could do, and if the US decided to do something, well, it *must* have a good reason, or else the US wouldn’t be doing it.
So as you pointed out, the Soviet shuttle program basically only existed because we had announced one. The Soviet program had just a tiny budget, so they did some clever things. They knew they could never build reliable SRBs, so they went with liquid ones instead (LRBs). Making reusable engines was just way too difficult and expensive, so they decided to use disposable ones. This meant that the orbiter itself didn’t need other have any engine, *but* the physical design of their shuttle was openly lifted from the US. They saved money by just waiting for us to do all the wind tunnel testing, and when we had a design, they just yoinked it at a fraction of the cost. [Dishonest, but very clever] Of course this meant they got stuck with the delta wings that neither they nor we needed, but that’s another story.
The thing is, the American shuttle program never made a ton of sense. People to this day believe it was more economical than the ‘wasteful’ Saturn V, but in fact it cost the “Economical” shuttle six times as much per kilogram of cargo put in orbit. And as you pointed out, NASA was expected to do between 50-100 flights a year with a fleet of about a dozen or sixteen shuttles.
The Soviets were right to fear the thing would be used by the US military. Our Air Force requisitioned its own squadron of shuttles to be launched out of Vandenberg AFB in California. Eventually, however, the USAF got concerned about the reliance on SRBs, which, in their experience, were just too damn dangerous to be relied on in a manned vehicle, so the Air Force pulled out. They did have a launch facility and did hope to launch a few “DOD” missions in later years, though none of these ever came to pass.
The American shuttle was capable of autonomous flight. The only thing it couldn’t do was put down the landing gear and I have no idea why not. The Astronauts themselves insisted on it. Indeed it made many flights where the crew really didn’thave to do anything other than push the button to lower the wheels. I don’t understand it.
Where the program really excelled was the Energia rocket booster, which was kinda brilliant. It could be launched as a core, or with two or four LRBs depending on the cargo you wanted to put in orbit. It could be launched with or without the orbiter on the side, with a huge payload capacity if you went without the orbiter. . I’m not surprised their shuttle program failed, shuttles are just kind of a bad idea, but the Energia being abandoned still surprises me. It was an amazing rocket.
Oh: one detail you missed: The Buran only flew once, but the Energia flew twice. The first time was a year earlier when it was supposed to deliver an (illegal) weapons platform to the MIR space station. The platform malfunctioned, however, and went ass-over-teakettle into the pacific ocean. The second Energia flight was the Buran mission, which went off without a hitch.
Russia attempted for more than a decade to get foreign investors to back restarting the VKK Space Orbiter program, but there were no takers.
OMG, those images of the crushed orbiter physically hurt!
8 minutes old and it’s already in my queue!! Thanks Jake for another banger!
Its just so sad, these should have been in museums! I know its not our place to talk about how other countries should take care of their history, but these could have been a great tourist attraction.
There is one in the Technische Museum Speyer in Germany in perfect condition
Yes, but it the test article for atmospheric flight, apart from having the right shape and surface thete's no interior.
This is the last thing I expected to see on this channel. Love it though, glad to see it covered here
Buran my beloved
Bald has the best video on YT featuring this!!
I agree, it's one of his best videos. Mr. Bald's video was the first I heard of the Buran.
His video is one of my all time favorite YT videos, after their hike to get there, when you finally see the shuttle it just looks literally unreal
Love seeing all the old artistic depictions of the shuttle program. it's cool to see how close they were, and how similar they are to Space X's star ship program today.
Cool video. I saw the Buran in the museum in Speyer last year 👌
Seeing the Buran with graffiti made me a bit angry lol, at least they tried to repaint it
Up close, the cover up white paint yellowed and looks worse. I think it caused more damage despite their intentions.
Loved your channel now for years started with abandoned and bankrupt. your content has been getting better and better every year loving it keep it up!
love this channel, the content is better than anything on the cable channels
How incredibly Russian that a total lack of maintenance destroyed Buran. Not lack of maintenance on the shuttle, but on the building it was in.
Well, the building was in Kazakhstan, not in Russia. And by the time Russia got any semblance of economy back after the collapse of USSR it was too late anyway
Going out in the most Soviet way possible
Yeah, that came as a surprise to me when I saw it in the video. I had always thought the Russians put it on static display somewhere in their territory.
@@benjaminrobinson3842Когда-то была более развитая цивилизация на нашей земле. Но это всё в прошлом.
Great episode Jake, excellent research and finding footage...well done....
Also can second that response as well never imagined you hit this but you did.
Thanks Jake. Awesome video! As a space nut, I am glad you covered the buran.
After the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991, the Russian Federation prioritized other space endeavors, such as the Mir space station and collaboration with the International Space Station (ISS). The Buran program was officially canceled in 1993.
Good footage and great storytelling! Thank you my dude!
I love learning about abandoned places, not just malls but also shuttles and regular stores. I have a suggestion for a mall that isn't 100 precent abandoned but is slowly dying: Northgate Mall in Layfette, LA. It's a really sad story. At least other malls in that same area are kind of thriving [but probably not for much longer].
I love this kind of story, Jake. Keep it up!
Great job Jake... Another amazing video with super interesting content!
Thanks!
Idk why I stop watching your channel. You have great videos
This needs to be said: the American space shuttle was also capable of autonomous flight - the onboard computers constantly analyzed the flight trajectory and suggested the optimal flight path on a screen, in the cockpit, and the pilot followed that path with his hand on the stick. The reason for such arrangement was to have the pilot have a feel of the stick in case of smth.
So cool to see Chris on BSF, been following him for years now.
Amazing, thanks for your support!
Bob's urbex from there was epic. One of my favorite places hes been.
this is freaky cool, i just had a bit of a barrage of a few videos of exploration (okay, only two in past day or so) of the Buran shuttles and now one from BSF ... well put together video!!
Jake you do such a friggin good job on all your videos man !
That’s really kind, thank you!
Amazing video and love the new outro music 😍
I love seeing the concept art.
Hi Jake: I want to take a minute and thank you for the videos you create. I discovered the urbex videos several months ago and I've gotten hooked on more than seeing abandoned buildings - but also the history. Usually I'm the one asking questions or finding out more about the history of the building and sharing it in my reply. That was until I found your videos. I have to say I'm very impressed with the level of detail you provide. It is clear you spend a great deal of time producing each video. So many of the urbex videos I've seen it is the usual: Sounds of crunching as the person or persons is walking through the building, looking for something interesting or "cool" to show the viewers. But your videos tell a story and that I greatly appreciate. I watched the one update video in which you talked about making these videos for 10 years? That is amazing!! Do you have plans for becoming a filmmaker or creating documentaries like the one film you made, as a full-time profession? You have a real gift and as a young man, you certainly have a "bright" future ahead of you, if this is what you choose to do. What I can tell you from experience is that there are hints of what you are meant to do / meant to become / what will give you the most fulfillment -- early in life. How do I know? Some of my earliest memories were that of buying textbooks I could not read, along with a chalkboard, and pretending I was teaching my stuffed animals. Flash-forward all these years later and I have been a professor for 20 years, after a career for 20 years in Corporate America as a Manager of Training & Development. Back to the video, again: Good work!! Sincerely, Bruce
baikonur needs to be a CoD map. Playing a deathmatch in and around abandoned Buran prototypes would be awesome.
Wow 94th abandoned, honestly Jake your incredible with the amount of work you put into your videos. Can’t wait for the 100th, I’m sure you’re not gonna disappoint. Keep up the great content and stay safe. 🩵
Thank you so much!
It would be hearbrakeing to have worked on this and never seen it come to fruition, but at least the engineers and scientists that designed and built these knew that what they built, worked.
Thanks for a really great video, I was always interested in the buran program from seeing images as a kid and then snapshots and videos from the explores that visited, but never really knew the history and how many were made. I leaned a few things today.
Thanks again.
Mr sheik I do enjoy your work honestly seeing all these abandoned areas. I wonder if there is another append era in Florida, because that's where I live. I live in Jacksonville There's always a lot of bad places that need to be checked. If I remember correctly, you didn't want on a marine land. And thanks to that, my where I live, we know not to go there. So thanks to you, we know it. That's not a fun place to go. Thanks you so much for serious. Thank you. In any case, can't wait to see the rest of your work. By the way, we still have a Ruby Tuesday here in Jacksonville Florida. If you want to come down, it's still here.
Hey I saw that brief display in Australia! It was cool, they had scaffolding around it so you could see inside the whole thing.
That one is OK-GLI and now in the Speyer Musuem in Germany.
Same here! I must have been 7 at the time, it was just after the Olympics.
@@blaked8438 I might have been 10 or so, how lucky we were to see it in Sydney of all places. These days the land would be used for apartment towers haha
This is why I wanted you to do a video on this subject, I had no idea a roof collapse had destroyed the actual buran.
You have something extraordinary here!
13:45 that wooden mock-up looks fning ridiculous...lol
The photography in this video is exceptional - as a pilot - seeing the Antanov AN-225 aka Мрия was also a site
Another great video, Jake! 😊
Thanks again!
I was doing some reading years ago on the US Space Shuttle and found an interview with a NASA engineer who worked on the Buran in the 90's. Apparently, there was a lot of collabs between Russia and the US at the time trying to keep them proped up and prevent them from collapsing entirely. He spent months working with his Russian counterparts who developed and built it, and went through a lot of the documentation.
The part that really blew my mind was he said there was almost nothing on it taken from the Space Shuttle. As much as people say it was just a copy, or made from stolen plans, according to him that was all false. They just happened to figure out that was the best design for the purpose using the technology of the time. Going through everything, he said aside from the general outside look, almost nothing inside was anything like the USSS. And the things that were seemed like obvious "Here's the best place to put this."
I wish I had saved it, or remembered where I found it. I think it was on the US National Archives site. But it was fascinating seeing a Soviet program that was completely independent with nothing taken from the West being an almost identical result.
That would be an amazing addendum to this video!!
Excellent as always, Jake & co. (One tiny thing - Luckhardt's lower 3rd at ~ 10:33 is misspelled... its got an 'o' instead of an 'a' in photographer.)
I saw the orbiter in Speyr - Great presentation - worth a trip!
Bald & Bankrupts vid of him sneaking in is one of the most legendary vids
Oh damn, this is gonna be one of the coolest abandoned episodes yet!
Of all the topics he could have covered I never expected him to cover the buran program
Love these videos
Great video. As a kid I was fascinated with the space shuttle. Exploring this abandoned project would be incredible. To think people snuck in to see and touch such a classified piece of technology from our Cold War enemy.
Trust me, I still think it’s insane that I did it twice. Once shouldn’t have been possible.
great video. Really well told and interview with Chris Luckart (sp?) brought some insight into how isolated this is.
Luckhardt, and thanks about the interview!
I would have never known.., great stuff
this was a really fantastic video
Little unusual request but can you do a video on the town of Lowell, Arizona. There’s talk inverters are rebuying in to keeping the town “stuck in time.” Love your vids, keep up the awesome work.
I visited the Technik Museum Speyer in Germany last summer and the Buran test vehicle (OK-GLI) is incredible to see in person! It’s far bigger seeing it in person than through an image. I highly recommend it, and one should also visit the sister Technik Museum in Sinsheim.
This is the perfect example how amazing and insane the human race can be. They managed to build such a marble of technology, even improved the original design just to let it sit there to rot in the end. You really need to let that think in. They managed to let this craft fly around the earth twice and let it land on its own on a runway that is tiny compared to the size of the earth and all of that in the 90s. It took another 30 years for a country to do this miracle of technology again. Now its even more impressive since they are landing boosters on an even tinier space.
But this is for me the pure definition of insanity that people did left this kind of technology in a hanger just to rot.
It shows the insanity of governments, especially centralized governments. No private sector orgnanization would be wasteful enough to create something that cost billions to just let it rot. Only an unaccountable government can do something this stupid.
They got bored and decided to lash out instead.
Hello Jake 👋🏼
I've been watching and loving your videos for over 5 years now and am usually not someone that comments on videos but today it's fitting for the topic of the video 🙌🏼
I live in Ludwigshafen about 30 minutes away from the Technik Museum in Speyer and me and my family have visited the museum about 2-3 times throughout each year for as long as I can remember.
Being able to see the Buran and even go inside of it is truly an amazing experience that I enjoy every single time we visit. I also remember that my mom let me stay home from school the day the Buran was towed on the river Rhein so we could go and see it 🙈 more specifically I remember slipping on the wet stones of the riverbank and slicing open my leg so I actually didn't SEE the Aircraft because I was crying so much 🙈🙈
But by far my favorite experience of the museum has to be the Lufthansa 747 you mentioned.
Seeing the inside of the aircraft and being able to go everywhere even the parts you're prohibited to go to as a passenger.
Although stepping inside the 747 feels pretty weird because it's a bit slanted and moves a bit in the wind so it's not for people with a sensitive stomach 😅 especially since you're able to walk around on the left wing (obviously caged in).
Greetings from Germany 👏🏼
Surprised to see Buran space shuttle video, I was lucky to see one and photograph it in Moscow Gorky Park.
Fantastic as always. I recently stumbled across the abandoned Majestic Star in Gary IN on google maps. I found its boating history and eventually subsequent abandonment for an inland building. Huge facility just slapped out there to be left. Id love to see a video about something like that.
Thanks for this, I've been fascinated with Buran's abandonment and decay for years. Humorously given the Soviets military concerns for the American space shuttle, to secure funding NASA had to accommodate many USAF requirements (what one might argue were outrageous edge use cases) that ultimately may have hampered its overall operational capabilities (and cost). In the end, few if any of these requirements were used. If the Soviets were driven to equal these supposed military uses and thus copied those requirements, it might have equally contributed to Buran's end. Again, a fascinating story/history, and that the actual orbiter was crushed by a falling roof is so unfortunate.
It's well known that the KGB ripped off the schematics and copied the idea.
Would love to see you do an Abandoned episode on the St Peter's Seminary in Cardross, Scotland.
Oh man I saw this vid and thought you snuck in to see it! Very risky trip!
Such a fascinating and intriguing story
The Buran is to the Space Shuttle, as the Concordski Tu-144 is to the Concorde.
That being said, the Tu-144 was worse than Concorde, despite being bigger and faster. The Buran, though, may well have had more potential than the NASA Space Shuttle programme.
Feels like I've walked this area in so many video games...
Thanks for providing link for BURAN RU. If you trully interested in that subject, i highly recomend browsing into russian section on the site, it is much bigger than english one. My favourite read from there are Yermolaev memoirs. He worked in sequrity during that only launch, and that memoirs gives great insight into USSR life and program context. Sadly, I don't know if Google translate of it make it anywhere comprehensive.
I saw the Flight test Orbiter of Buran in Speyer Germany. It is really impressive
There is a Buran space shuttle in the Technical Museum in Speyer, Germany. You can actually go inside of it and it's amazing! They brought it in over the Rhine river.
Mentioned in the video.
Great Video guys!
The US space shuttle orbiter had an autoland system, that aspect was not unique to the Buran. However it still required a pilot to activate the autoland procedure, as with all other autonomous features. It is true that the SSO was not as advanced in all autonomous functions, but there were many automated features and further NASA plans to expand that functionality later.
the graffiti photo is the only image id ever seen of this place and i was stoked you showed it. Thats the only guy on the planet that can say he painted a space shuttle haha
You should do a video on the Shell Factory in North Fort Myers, FL. They just recently went out of business and is being left abandoned.
The Edward Hotel in Dearborn Michigan is an abandoned luxury hotel with such a rich history. I think it would be an interesting episode.
Incredible really!
One of the reasons it is basically a 1 for 1 copy of the US orbiter is the spaceframe plans were never top secret, so they were easily accessible and the US had basically done a lot of the hardwork in design for the Soviets.
Arguably the Buran and more importantly it's Energia launch system with it's liquid fueled boosters and main stage were much superior to the US version with it's SRBs and external fuel tank.
Has a 100% success rate, quite rare for Soviet hardware.
great video!! thanks
Terrific film!
The ultimate video about this topic❤
Just i didnt know it got graffiti. There are some xxxholes around the world 😢
Keep it clean🙏
This was your time to get Bald and Bankrupt on!!! Dang it man
Was looking for this comment. I immediately clicked this video because of the thumbnail.
Great video. As always
If you ever want to see a Buran yourself, go to the Technikmuseum in Speyer in Germany. The aero flight prototype is on display there.
On the other hand, they never crashed forty percent of their fleet. We were WAY ahead in that area, with Challenger and Columbia.
Very interesting
Excellent video!!