Soviet Space: Rust in Peace

I am a huge fan of the Soviet/Russian space program and find it utterly fascinating to see where their technology ends up (all too often in the junk pile). I came across this photo thread through my StumbleUpon account.

The photographer apparently claims to have found these abandoned Soyuz and Progress capsules (and what looks like pressurized experiment modules) in what I'm assuming is a warehouse. I don't speak Russian, but Google makes the attempt:

www.stumbleupon.com...

Cemetery landers All that is connected with the cosmos, I am attracted and attracts. And then one rainy night, I opened the door to a huge hangar in which presented itself to my view of a small cemetery landers. What is a landing craft and photographs of this unusual finding more under the cut.

The images are stunning...and the sense of loss, to me, is overwhelming. The photographer's photo stream shows all kinds of weird and wonderful examples of the mighty Soviet Empire's high-technology.

I kind of miss the Cold War...at least the bad guys were interesting.

I am a huge fan of the Soviet/Russian space program and find it utterly fascinating to see where their technology ends up (all too often in the junk pile).

That's where you will find most of the Russian space program.

I share your love of the old soviet space program. what they had once upon a time was very special and is big loss for all of us. Thanks for posting.

I do not second the desire for another cold war and its classy villains , but i certainly agree that Russian space program decline is a sad development. For all people.
However China is there to pick up the flame. Who knows, maybe they will even listen to you and pick up the cold war "bad guys" torch too.

reply to post by NuminousCosmos


It's a shame to see all equipment just sit there and rust. While all their equipment is rusting, it is, however, the ony way we are able to get our astronauts into space since we killed our shuttle program.

reply to post by ZeroKnowledge


I certainly don't miss the nuclear war paranoia.

I guess It's that ol' nostalgia for military posturing and brinkmanship.

Most all of those relics look too small to have been planned manned capsules. There may be a couple but most don't look like they have any life support systems.

Originally posted by Illustronic
Most all of those relics look too small to have been planned manned capsules. There may be a couple but most don't look like they have any life support systems.

Most of those pictures seem to be of Soyuz Descent Modules, which are manned. Also there might be at least one photo of a Soyuz Orbital module.

The Soyuz spacecraft consists of the:
Descent Module: the bell-shaped thing that barely fits three people inside and not much else.
Orbital Module: sperical part that gives the spacecraft some living space while in orbit (ditched right before re-entry)
Service Module: The thing that hold propulsion systems, life support, solar panels etc. (also ditched before re-entry, no pictures of these on that site)

But yeah, it's quite sad to see in what state the Russian space exploration is in at the moment.

Originally posted by Illustronic
Most all of those relics look too small to have been planned manned capsules. There may be a couple but most don't look like they have any life support systems.

To add to what MacAnkka said above, the Soyuz descent/re-entry module is tiny -- less than 7 feet wide by 7 feet tall (2.2 meters x 2.1 meters). The crew of three is shoehorned in with not much more room to do anything other than lay in their seats.:

upload.wikimedia.org...

i88.photobucket.com...




The basic layout and size of the Soyuz capsule has changed very little since they were introduced in the mid-1960s. Their simplicity is one of the reasons that they are such a workhorse for the Russians, even today (and, for now, they are also the only way the U.S. can get NASA astronauts to and from the space station).

reply to post by NuminousCosmos


S & F from me simply for starting a thread about old Soviet space tech.

People laugh at the technology, etc, but frankly i am full of admiration for a people who sent people into space with what was, effectively, corrugated iron and sticky backed plastic!

I have read some of the accounts of the early cosmonauts and all i can say is wow. Those were brave, dignified people that we owe a debt of gratitude to.

It never ceases to amaze me the level of "getter' done" the Russians did. Some of these vehicles would have been condemned by NASA as unsafe for human occupancy. Yet they managed to lob a man into space (first) in a substantially bigger capsule than Al Shepard was launched in for his paltry suborbital flight...and here they are today, using the same basic vehicle designs that have served them since the 60s.

Totally amazing to me.

Very interesting thread OP.
I love space exploration history. These photos were awesome. Star & flag for you.

Sad that there is so much awesome stuff that is abandoned in Russia.
Just like that Buran shuttle they had, witch was abandoned after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
It would have been a very interesting competitor for the American space shuttle.

Heck even their abandoned crafts are not safe.

From the Wikipedia article :

On 12 May 2002, a hangar housing Buran in Kazakhstan collapsed, due to poor maintenance. The collapse killed eight workers and destroyed the orbiter as well as a mock-up of an Energia carrier rocket