The Buran: The Soviet Union's Suspiciously Familiar-Looking Space Shuttle

Whelp! Why buy a Cadillac CT4-V Blackwing when the superior engineering of the Lada Vesta is there for the taking. 🍿

It's sad to see what happened to the craft after, should have been put in a safe place, so at least it could have been remembered as what could have been.

The US Space Shuttle program was never classified. One later NASA administrator said, in an interview, "If they had written to us and asked for the plans, we would have sent them everything."

The Buran could tae off and land entirely automatically !
And it did !

That Marie antoinette cake thing is a lie

Well, I couldn't build one, so respect to anyone that can.. 😅😅

ये टकला रशिया से इतना जलता हैं.

Everything they have is a copy of western things except, for some reason, the cars. Those buckets they design/build themselves.

The Buran shuttle was light years better than the Yank shuttle, the yanks attempted to copy the Buran.

Ha ha still the stupid commies lost

Every time I watch one of these cold war era videos I can't help but wonder what the US and the Soviets could have achieved if they had been able to work together. But then, again I guess the competition was the key.

Ev

The Buran most definitely was not a rip-off. Whilst its outer appearance is very similar to to that of the Spaceshuttle for reasons addressed in the video (spying and aerodynamics), the interior and especially the propulsion system was a lot different. As partially explained in the video, the Spaceshuttle had its main engines used for the ascend to orbit on itself and just carried a huge external fuel tank, as well as boosters to aid on lift-off, under its belly. Buran however was strapped to the side of an independent rocket that in fact could also carry other payloads. Buran only had smaller orbital maneuvering engines for changing orbit and de-orbiting for return to earth. In this sense it’s more similar to the x 37. It should also not be forgotten that in fact the US copied earlier sovjet space plane designs that would later evolve into the Spaceshuttle and resembled the Dreamchaser spacecraft currently being developed by SNC.

Buran also has the "the second mouse gets the cheese" advantage. The USSR got to see the errors the US made.

Too bad that Russia could not have placed it into a museum for preservation and historical purposes.

I'm very... very late to the party.... Rip off not..... yet stolen! well at least the stats!

you have never heard of project Star Wars that USA plans to weaponize space above earth with weapons that aims for USSR.. -.-

na...it was in fact a NASA ripoff. there is no denying it. sure they made tweaks to it, but they got it from spying, as you said.

Of course it's a copy.
They only had to create what they couldn't copy.

20 metres shorter?! More like 90 cm.

Your dimension are WAY OFF. Length and wingspan between the Buran and the shuttle are less than a meter. as well the weight. It was 53 tons.

From what I understand, The soviets got caught with their hands in the cookie jar and we started feeding them false information.

Did the CCCP used ChatGPT back then the build the Buran?

Ford: Steals plans for the Silverado
Ford: “Introducing the new Golderado!”
Chevy: Bro, seriously? Copy cat much?
Ford: “No copy, there’s more cupholders.”

Can we stop acting like the Soviets didn’t essentially do exactly this with the shuttle? I mean they did the exact same thing when they straight up made copies of the B-29 a few decades prior.

Could you please post a giant sign behind the camera reminding you to SLOW THE FREAK DOWN!

The first US space shuttle was the Enterprise. The Columbia was to replace the Challenger

The US copied them
It was photographed 3 years before and a shipment of the engine was intercepted and stripped down by the US

Didn’t watch the video but if he tells you different then he is a liar or a poor researcher

R&D = research and duplicate

One of the things that make it so interesting to watch for example Scott Manley's work, is that he doesn't do the childish jokes, or have the incessant mocking tone, that this guy does... or base his shows off of an hour or so of web browsing and checking wikipedia...

Scott gives a lot of detailed information, does a lot of research, and gives everything a balanced analysis... Highly recommend we all go watch him instead :)

Actually the shuttle plans were not classified and easy for them to find. The Buran was a version 2 craft. They had the benefit of hindsight while developing the craft. The Energia was also not designed to carry their shuttle, it was adapted and was a better design than the shuttle launch system.

The Buran wasn't any different than most Soviet era tech. Stolen, backward engineered proprietary technology that was simplified for less maintenance. The Russians had a lot of strengths but imagination wasn't one of them.

Okay, it's a semi-ripoff.

The only time I've heard of the Buran is in the novel “Back to the Moon”, written by Homer Hickam (yes, the same man from the movie “October Sky”, where he’s portrayed by Jake Gyllenhaal). In the novel, after the shuttle pilot is accidentally killed, another NASA astronaut hitches a ride in a Russian Soyuz, accompanied by a cosmonaut who was trained to pilot the Buran. The cosmonaut ends up landing the shuttle at the end of the story.

The biggest difference between the shuttle and Buran is that the shuttle actually flew.

shut up

No disrespect to American designers, but.. it's not like the shuttle was that 'unique' of a design. I mean... most planes look pretty similar.. buses, cars, etc. Then of course there is the Wheel.. lol. The Russians beat us into space; lets not presume they couldn't come up with a 'shuttle design' on their own

What a loving tribute to the long lost Soviet Union. It was so good the Democrats are currently trying to duplicate its utopian perfection right here in the US.
/sarcasm
Evil always finds a way

Buran had a lot going for it: jet engines for atmospheric flight, much better orbital engines than the Shuttle and in a better position, the Energia rocket could launch on its own with payloads on the side rather than Buran and there was even talk of making the four boosters recoverable by deploying big wings and flying them to a runway.
Unfortunately it has no real purpose and a few key disadvantages compared to the Shuttle too: the Shuttle brought the expensive booster engines back with it whereas Energia was expended each time it launched, the Shuttle’s disposable bits were much cheaper to make than Energia and the huge expense of making Buran with all its advanced features probably played a not inconsequential role in the ultimate collapse of the USSR.

It's a copy! Like many soviet planes ☹️ red army, red disease 🤮

Well, let's hear what type of soviet propaganda you spew. You apologist for commies. Ha ha ha ha ha.

The jet engines were used so that pilots could take off like a regular aircraft for landing tests. Initially, the pilots flew all the way to wheelstop, but near the end of the tests, the pilots only brought the plane to altitude and the computers landed it hands off.

I think they copied the aerodynamics to save time and effort, but this was not a 1 to 1 copy. The rocket engines/propellant were totally different too.

I remember watching the first space shuttle launch.
I was in the 5th grade when Columbia blew up.

No it’s not a copy. It’s coincidental. 😂😂😅😂🤣😂😂😂😂😂😂🤣😂🤣😂😂😂😂🤣🤣😂😂😎

The Soviet Union collapsed? You better look again, with a dictator in power for about 20 years that kills anyone who runs against him, id call that communism.