First Western publications on Energiya-Buran

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Table 1. National Geographic 10\1986. Special Issue "Soviet in space."

Table 3. National Geographic 10\1986. American artist graphically painted two starting positions hypothetical Soviet shuttle in Baikonur! They are very similar to the real (small differences). But the most shocking: side view of a single shuttle riding on a rocket. In the Soviet shuttle inscription: "Buran"! The American mass magazine in October 1986! A booster rocket copies "Energy". Yes, it is "Energy". Assembly shop and transportation process is similar to the real one.
 

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For all the mistakes of our governments, for all the failures of "Common sense" displayed by our "Leaders", as long as we have access to sites like this one we can be equal and talk together without the body politic interfering. Personally speaking and as a Trekkie, without this type of access to like minded people across the planet, my faith would be torn to shreds rather than being savaged. Noli Illegitemi Carbonundrum.
 
I had a box of National Geographics as a child and this issue was the one that fell apart from constant re-reading! What a delight to see it again!
 
hesham said:
Hi,

here is the Russian old shuttle heavy lift launch vehicle.
http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1986/1986 - 0900.html
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The full-color DoD artwork of the Soviet space shuttle (which was named Buran) mated to the Energia super heavy-lift launch vehicle on which the drawing is based can be found in the 1986 edition of the DoD's Soviet Military Power at this link:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/00/Soviet_Military_Power,_1986.pdf
The DoD document estimated that the USSR would begin test launches of the Buran shuttle in late 1986 or 1987, but the Buran ended up making its first and only orbital launch in November 1988.
 
Polyus probably inspired “IKON” in the 2000 movie SPACE COWBOYS…though IKON’s internals looked more like Peter The Great from METEOR.
 
XP67_Moonbat said:
From Bill Gunston's Warplanes Of The Future (1985)
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The Moonraker vibes on that Buran. He obviously got the paint scheme idea from the Bor vehicles. That said I thought those stripes were heat indicating paint so I wouldn't think they'd be on a full size vehicle (and they weren't).
10-BOR%204-BOR%204-bor42.jpg
 
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The red stripes painted on the Bor-4 spaceplane were, obviously, done in order to increase the vehicle's visibility after the splashdown, helping recovery team to spot it across the waves.
 
Oddly Western analystis thought that Bor-4 was the subscale test article of a far bigger vehicle, this was partially true since the various Bor-2, 3 and 4 were actually subscale test article of the not so bigger Spiral/MiG-105-11, completely unknown at that times.
The already unknown Bor-5 was actually a subscale version of the full scale Buran.
 
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"Man in Space" from "new scientist", published in 1986, was the first time I got aware of the Soviet space shuttle program.
 

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archipeppe said:
The red stripes painted on the Bor-4 spaceplane were, obviously, done in order to increase the vehicle's visibility after the splashdown, helping recovery team to spot it across the waves.
Click to expand...
Makes more sense. I mixed it's purpose up with Bor-5's paint job.

40-BOR%205-BOR%205-BOR5-0005.jpg
 
overscan (PaulMM) said:
Soviet Military Power 1984
View attachment 684900
View attachment 684901
Click to expand...
I know these illustrations since mid-80's, where largely published in specialized magazines as "Volare" and "Aerospazio Mese".
The drawings addresses (more or less correctly) the Zenit, Energia and Vulkan (a sort of super-Energia envisioned by Glushko) launchers, even if the artwork is really closer to the actual Energia.

The "Reusable space plane in development" reflects exactly what I've pointed out in my previous post, U.S. Intelligence Analysits were misleaded by the Bor-4, they thought about a really small subscale test article (like X-23 Prime) as forerunner to a larger spaceplane (4 cosmonauts) in the same class of Hermes.
Obviously such project never existed, but its mythology persisted giving birth to the the urban legend of the dubbed "Uragan spaceplane".
 
archipeppe said:
overscan (PaulMM) said:
Soviet Military Power 1984
View attachment 684900
View attachment 684901
Click to expand...
I know these illustrations since mid-80's, where largely published in specialized magazines as "Volare" and "Aerospazio Mese".
The drawings addresses (more or less correctly) the Zenit, Energia and Vulkan (a sort of super-Energia envisioned by Glushko) launchers, even if the artwork is really closer to the actual Energia.

The "Reusable space plane in development" reflects exactly what I've pointed out in my previous post, U.S. Intelligence Analysits were misleaded by the Bor-4, they thought about a really small subscale test article (like X-23 Prime) as forerunner to a larger spaceplane (4 cosmonauts) in the same class of Hermes.
Obviously such project never existed, but its mythology persisted giving birth to the the urban legend of the dubbed "Uragan spaceplane".
Click to expand...
Did the LKS also cause analysts to believe there was a small scale space plane in development?
LKS
lks_strike_version_1.jpg
 
thatdronedude said:
Did the LKS also cause analysts to believe there was a small scale space plane in development?
Click to expand...
No, simply because Western analysists were completely unaware about the LKS program.

It lost the competition against Buran (even if LKS was more sound in my opinion) and Chelomey was ordered to destroy all the related material, included the full scale mock-up, obviously he didn't comply the order and simply put away from sight all the stuff.

The information about such program resurfaced only after the end of USSR in the second half of the 90's.
 
The existence of a "small spaceplane" was triggered by the TKS-VA double capsule tests, it means that a single Proton launched two VAs at one time.

Western Analysts understood that those launch were related, in such way, to a manned spacecraft program. But they don't feel credible that Russians were developing a new family of manned spacecraft meanwhile they run the brand new (at that times) Soyuz. Incredibly it was exaclty ongoing with the development of the TKS spacecraft, it flew several times but never with a crew onboard.

https://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/tks-va.htm
 
Here it is a Charles P. Vick illustration about the "Reusable space plane in development" (from the book the Dream Machines by Ron Miller), as it is possible to see is completely fictional. Such illustration reflects what Western Analysts thought about the various Proton TKS-VA dual launches (starting by Cosmos 881/882).
Obviously is rather silly with such "belly to belly" configuration. Such kind of illustration was later updated into the "Uragan" mixing up the photos of the Bor-4 recoveries.
While in the following image we may see "the real thing" that is to say the dual TKS-VA arragement inside the Proton's fairing.

1664869124765.jpeg

1664869173143.png
 
The two Stabilo-like VAs together about as tall as a VA topped TKS/FGB or Zond circumlunar? I imagine the profiles were similar.
 
More TKS than Zond 7K-L1.
The purpose of the dual test was to exploit the extra mass launch capability of Proton in order to maximize test result, doubling it.
 
I'm sorry-by profile I meant the double VA looked about the same as seen from the side atop Proton. The Energia is drawn almost as tall as Block 2 SLS in some art. Wonder if that would be enough to allow slowing and chute recovery.
 
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Does anyone have any information on the wingless Buran that comes up now and then in some Soviet space station artwork? Can they reenter or are they purely cargo/weapon blocs? Seems way too costly to just be a large MIRV bus like the Energia/Buran website said it would have been used as.
attack1.gif
 

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