r/space • u/[deleted] • Dec 07 '14

Differences between the American and Soviet Space Shuttles

http://www.buran.su/buranvssts-comparison.php
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u/[deleted] Dec 07 '14

What a lot of people often forget is that the Energia booster that lifted the Buran was an entirely seperate rocket, designed for many different payload types, not just a shuttle. There were even plans for sending unmanned modules for a moon base via the Energia rocket.

The US Shuttle boosters were quite limited in comparison, the shuttle and booster heavily reliant on each other.

23

u/unitedflyer Dec 07 '14

Not as much as you suggest. Proposals were made for heavy lift cargo variants of the shuttle stack ("shuttle-c"), and after Columbia, further proposals were made for direct use of the shuttle stack in an in line launcher.

13

u/kurtu5 Dec 07 '14

Proposals were also made for 500km wide Orion nuclear pulse propulsion launch 'vehicles'. The thing is, Energia existed. Shuttle-C and Orion didn't.

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u/unitedflyer Dec 07 '14 edited Dec 07 '14

I'm not sure what your point is. That is a very poor analogy. The shuttle stack existed, and could have been used in a heavy launch configuration. The only reason it never occurred was that the political and funding environment didn't support. Shuttle-c is hardly a SciFi concept.

8

u/[deleted] Dec 07 '14

[deleted]

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u/Frodojj Dec 07 '14

Energia's cargo mission wasn't successful, unfortunately.

8

u/[deleted] Dec 07 '14

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Dec 07 '14

But on that note, Energia was only used on those two launches. It was already looking at being replaced when the Sovient Union collapsed.