Yes, it was covered in spray-on foam insulation similar to the one used on the space shuttle (Ripor 2N, PPU-17) with some sections covered in ablative material (PPU-306, PPU-306N, PPU-306NP, applied mostly around the aft orbiter attachment points)
Yes, but since Buran was never meant to become the only Soviet crewed spacecraft, Rescue with one or two Soyuz (or eventually, Zarya capsule) would be more manageable if the heatshield would be thought to be compromised, there were proposals to carry emergency return capsules in the payload bay too.
. But, yes, I agree with you, the Energia rocket-launcher had a lot of potential.Well, the oxygen ramp on STS faced the orbiter on the exterior. Energiya could have had the line in the middle of opposite from the orbiter.
Falling ice was definitely a serious issue that was considered by the designers and was probably what caused most of the tile loss during the 1988 orbital flight. The core stage did not have any foam ramps like the ones on the Space Shuttle ET, so a Columbia-type foam impact was unlikely, same with Challenger-type SRB burn-through, but "standard" ceramic tile spaceplane risks were still present: falling ice, tile erosion, gap filler protrusion, airframe overheating etc.
Doesn't matter. Debris came off of other areas than foam ramps
There was NSS-8 instead
I was able to contact him and buy DVDs and his book. Can share his WhatsApp number
If Roscosmos had maintained the building in which the Buran and its' Energia launch-rocket were in it could've turned it into a tourist attraction making money from interested western tourists wanting to see the Soviet space Shuttle.
Buran burried under the fallen roof was a property of Kazakhstan. As well as the building and all the area where that examplar was stored. The other two exemplars still existing and located in Baikonur belong to Kazakhstan as well.
No, the Enterprise was built by NASA to perform atmospheric test flights after being launched from a modified Boeing 747. The OK-MT was built for static testing (*), the only time it flew was when it was transported by the Myasishchev VM-T "Atlant" from Moscow to Baikonur.
The Soviet Enterprise was OK-GLI, which is in the Speyer museum these days.
Yes and no. As mentioned above, OK-GLI was the orbiter used for horizontal flight tests, but OK-MT and OK-M were both used for pad interface tests and dynamic tests with the launch vehicle, same as Enterprise. So more like splitting Enterprise's role into three to four orbiters.
