Russian space shuttle dinner8/13/2023 ![]() ![]() In 1993, Boris Yeltsin canceled the program entirely, leaving some vessels to rot in a hangar while others were put on display in such places as the Sydney Summer Olympics and Moscow’s Gorky Park.īuran, the shuttle that actually flew, was destroyed in 2002 when its hangar collapsed after an earthquake, killing eight people. As envisioned, the Soviet shuttles would not only be able to fly themselves, they would also lift vastly heavier cargo into space that could then be used to build space stations and weapons.Ī casualty of the waning days of the Cold War and a collapsing Soviet economy, the shuttle program never took off - despite the successful flight in 1988 of an unpiloted orbiter named Buran, which loosely translates to “snowstorm” or “blizzard.”īuran would be the only Soviet orbiter to leave Earth. The space shuttles were designed and built during the 1970s and 1980s as part of the USSR’s attempt to outdo the U.S. It’s a rather unceremonious end for these abandoned icons of a once-proud space program. The other, a test vehicle, was never meant to fly. One shuttle, named Ptichka, never left Earth. They’re also attracting photographers eager to sneak around the ruins, such as Alexandar Kaunas, who recently filmed part of his journey into the cavern where the derelict shuttles are housed. Tucked into a lonely hangar at Baikonur Cosmodrome on the Kazakh steppe, two Soviet-era space shuttles are quietly gathering dust, bird poop, and rust. ![]()
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