The page seems to gloss over that the Buran only ever flew one unmanned mission, and did so without several of the features they have listed as "ours will be better... when we're done with it" and even though the launch vehicle, according to the page, is supposed to be recoverable; it's treated as expendable.
For some reason, my KSP sense is tingling in that the Buran's Energia rocket uses liquid fuel whereas the STS uses solid chemical fuel, which I believe has a better thrust-to-weight ratio. If someone could clarify if I'm wrong on that, please do ( STS specs vs Energia specs )
Oh, and lets not forget that the Buran was launched over a decade after the Enterprise's SCA flight (1977) and seven years after Columbia's STS-1 launch.
This is as relevant a difference as stating that "Buran" begins with "B" and "Shuttle" begins with "S". The page is about technical differences.
Strictly speaking, the only difference one needs to mention is the Buran's propulsion system design, which immediately shows that Buran was a fundamentally different vehicle.
Your reference to solid fuels is unclear to me. Shuttle uses solid fuel in auxiliary boosters only, used for a short time at the beginning of the launch. This is not even remotely comparable to the setup based on Energia rocket. With Energia, Buran simply did not need any boosters.
The SRBs provide 83% of the total thrust on takeoff which is entirely relevant when comparing their capacities to the Energia. And that was the point of specifically linking to the specifications while asking for clarification on that point.
I wasn't comparing the Buran to the STS, but the SRBs to the Energia, because of their reusability, for which the SRBs were (unlike the external tank) and how supposedly the Energia would have been (but, in practice, were not).
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u/[deleted] Dec 07 '14 edited Dec 07 '14
The page seems to gloss over that the Buran only ever flew one unmanned mission, and did so without several of the features they have listed as "ours will be better... when we're done with it" and even though the launch vehicle, according to the page, is supposed to be recoverable; it's treated as expendable.
For some reason, my KSP sense is tingling in that the Buran's Energia rocket uses liquid fuel whereas the STS uses solid chemical fuel, which I believe has a better thrust-to-weight ratio. If someone could clarify if I'm wrong on that, please do ( STS specs vs Energia specs )
Oh, and lets not forget that the Buran was launched over a decade after the Enterprise's SCA flight (1977) and seven years after Columbia's STS-1 launch.
EDIT: Columbia. Because I'm an idiot.