Urban Exploring the Buran at Baikonor Cosmodrome last summer

UrbEx is a subgenre I follow on YouTube, mostly old structures. On my feed, this recent vid popped up, probably connecting with the space videos I watch quite often. It is pretty long, but somewhat captivating. I can only imagine the penalties if the team got caught hiking cross-country and breaking into the facility.

My life is pretty boring by comparison.



Some gratuitous incidental music on this unrestored footage. It should be plenty enough to put a good citizen of Earth to sleep.

The front landing gear looks pretty freaking weak. Not much undercarrige clearance for the wings in case it rolled upon landing as well.

a reply to: FlyingFox

Never knew Buran actually flew. Did it reach orbit or were those tests?

First video is better than Space Camp!

That building is huge for holding the Buran.

a reply to: FlyingFox

The reason AN-225 was built.. kind of
en.m.wikipedia.org...


Now that we are back at who can do it better war or Cold War: even colder

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en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buran_programme

en.wikipedia.org...

Without digging too far, the single vertical launch was to orbit. Twice around and down via autopilot landing. It was a stripped-out model.

Prior tests, the Buran was fitted with 3 atmospheric jet engines, and flight tested in this conventional manner many times.

The main visual and engineering difference, that can be seen in the video, is the onboard engines for the Buran are much smaller, more or less for de-orbiting, rather than ascent like the STS. The drop-test Shuttle Enterprise has no engines, and is obviously flared and shrouded in the rear, more visually similar to the Buran.

a reply to: pavil
The shuttle itself did fly. It actually went into orbit and landed. Though it was unmanned at the time. I believe it was more capable than the USA counterpart but the need for such a craft was not there. That and they were out of money lol

Always a fascinating place to see. It's been visited several times before, giving us these amazing images: www.boredpanda.com...
The explorers even got inside the cabin and the cargo bay!

Interesting difference between the Buran and the Shuttle is that the Buran didn't provide any additional lift at takeoff; what looks like the External Fuel Tank was actually a full-blown rocket (Energia), and the Buran was just hitching the ride on it.

Energia FTW!

www.youtube.com...

The time may be ripe now, to restart a serious space program. Since the US looks like won't do it, and the EU lost the technical skills, due to Neurological warfare by the secret services, it's time for Russia and China to build that old Vulkan, derivate of the Energia super heavy rocket !

BTW, did anybody notice that Buran was actually the first independently flying "drone" ever created ? It could do, de-orbit, re-entry and landing without a crew. It did in the maiden flight !

a reply to: FlyingFox

Wow … thanks … and great videos. That first one in particular is the coolest thing I have seen in a while, and those guys are pretty brave to take risks, sneaking into there like that. I love urban exploring stuff!