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BURAN It's for amusement now... January 2001
	"Please fasten your seatbelts...    Meteor shower   ahead!"	15 November Launch 1988      Video
	Party in the cockpit!	Sit in the cockpit
Entrance		Film Shown in the Buran
	Buran in Gorky Park, Moscow.  View from across the river.  July 2003.   (Picture was taken from a moving Taxi, digitally enhanced.)    Viewed from the other side.
Click / tap images to enlarge
Buran in Gorky Park, Moscow. The tourists getting ready for the show inside the Buran   >> This particular Buran spaceship never flew.  It's on display as a tourist attraction in Gorky Park.
Марина Матвеева and Buran In the background; Buran viewed from a bridge near Gorky Park. Gorky Park is an an amusement park... statues, rides,  games.  It's also a movie. And it's also where a display model of the Russian space shuttle, BURAN is parked. The design of the Buran was started in 1974. The American shuttle design was studied intensively by Russian rocket scientists, but aspects of it were rejected based on Soviet engineering analysis. Parallel liquid propellant boosters were created. These would use a 700 ton thrust, four-chamber Lox / Kerosene engine which had already been under development. The Buran crew at Gorky Park. Tap / click to enlarge In 2000 it cost $15 for the ride and it's worth it!   The people are friendly and the "ride" is fun and interesting!
Buran at Baikonur: Buran at Baikonur ca. 1988.   Two abandoned Burans at Baikonur, Photo credit Ralph Mirebs   Baikonur, Photo credit Ralph Mirebs

The two shuttles

 

After 225 days in orbit the Air Force's mysterious X-37B space plane touched down in the summer  of 2011 at Vandenberg Air Force base. It was the only fully automated (re)entry and  runway landing since the Soviets achieved the first in 1988 with the robotic prototype of its Buran  Space Shuttle clone.

 

Links:
CD: The Flight of the Buran

Science Friday

 

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