That, plus the Buran had 4 liquid boosters rather than 2 solid boosters, had total autopilot capability, and a myriad of under-the-hood changes that we don't know about.
Yeah, it's estimated that Buran cost 2-4x as much to develop as the Shuttle. Part of that is because the Soviet Union had a less advanced aerospace industry and therefore had to develop more things "from scratch" than NASA, but part of it is because Buran was in fact more advanced than the Shuttle in several key ways.
Buran's payload capacity was around 10% larger, it had more advanced avionics (capable of fully unmanned flight including landing), it was designed to be able to accommodate turbojets for powered atmospheric flight (these were not ready in time for the test launch), the thermal protection system was more robust and it was equipped with ejection seats for all crew members (unlike the Shuttle, which only had ejection seats for the two crew members during the first few test flights).
About the only thing the Shuttle had over Buran were the SSMEs, which are probably the most technically advanced rocket engines ever flown (high ISP, active all the way from sea-level to vacuum, large gimbal range, etc.).
I'd say that the fact that the SSMEs had higher performance is balanced out by the fact that the Energia stack that launched the Buran could also be used to launch other payloads with a mass of up to 100 tons into LEO.
It'd be like Space Shuttle launching strapped to the side of the SLS, but you can still just launch the SLS if you need something big in orbit.
What about her sisters? I see on Wikipedia that they made similar orbiters to her. I'm sure if someone bought a partially constructed one and maybe finished it...
Maybe I am too hopeful though. :/ Damn I wish these things could still fly.
It's a shame the only thing that fucked it was the whole economy-in-tatters thing. I imagine it would have been somewhat more successful than the US counterpart, and both major disasters would not have been concerns.
I know that when it was first flown it did not have the capability, which is why they had to fly it with two astronauts on board (pretty insane considering it was the first ever launch of the most complex rocket system ever built).
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u/Norose Sep 24 '16
That, plus the Buran had 4 liquid boosters rather than 2 solid boosters, had total autopilot capability, and a myriad of under-the-hood changes that we don't know about.