Why did the Soviet Union abandon the supreme Buran spacecraft project of America?

The US project to build the Buran spacecraft is superior, and the last great project of the Soviet Union has been abandoned for many reasons.

30 years ago, on November 15, 1988, the Soviet Union launched the first reusable spacecraft called Buran . This ship is a multi-billion dollar project, the largest ever in the history of space exploration. It is brought into space with the Energia super strong rocket, flying around the earth's orbit and then returning to the original launch pad.

The flight is done in full automatic mode, without operator control. This is the first time in history that a spacecraft capable of self-propelled, landing on such a pre-set schedule.

After Buran's first space flight, the Soviet press promised a new era in space exploration. But in fact the launch ship of the Buran, though very successful, is its last flight. And the promising project of the "Soviet spacecraft" , and the Soviet Union's last great project, was abandoned.

The entire Buran launcher scene before departure time.(Photo: Remmirath).

New era of re-used spacecraft

In the 1970s, American aerospace engineers decided to end the era of single-use spacecraft. They realized it was time to design a new type of reusable spacecraft, not only operating in space but also returning to Earth successfully. That's why America's reusable spacecraft program was born.

Americans believe that, with these ships, flights into space will cost much less. But history proves that that view is wrong. Each flight carried out by re-used spacecraft costs about 1.5 billion USD, making the project closed in 2011.

At the time of 1970-1980, spacecraft was considered a new breakthrough in the field of space exploration. Overcoming initial skepticism, the Soviet Union quickly began to design a reusable spacecraft, Buran. The Soviet leader tasked engineers to build an American-style spacecraft because Americans had a long way of experimenting and overcoming mistakes. Seven years after the first US shuttle Columbia was launched in 1981, the Soviet ship Buran made the legendary flight.

Copy of American spacecraft?

The Soviet Buran spacecraft looks like a US shuttle Columbia. However, due to the fact that Buran was born 7 years later than the space shuttle, Buran avoided the mistakes of his opponents, making many improvements. Buran can stay on orbit for 30 days, twice as long as Columbia. It can carry 30 tons of cargo, while the US shuttle only carries 24 tons. However, the main difference is that the Buran spacecraft can fly and land on an automatic mechanism, which has been perfectly shown in its single flight.

Cost is too expensive

Although Buran was a real technical breakthrough, it was too expensive for the Soviet Union at the time - when the country spent huge amounts of money on many large projects for more than 10 years. Energia-Buran project costs a total of more than 16 billion rubles. This amount can be used to build a large urban area for 10 million people.

In addition, the cost of a Buran flight is also very high , while the use of proton and Soyuz boosters is much cheaper. The idea of ​​developing Buran into space bombs was also abandoned due to the tension of US-Soviet relations in the late 1980s. Engineer Stanislav Aksyonov, who participated in this project, recalled: 'The last reused spacecraft cannot be used anymore. After the first flight on the hull appeared many cracks and engineers needed to carry out major overhaul. '

Thus, the last major Soviet project was frozen in 1990 and officially closed in the post-Soviet period, 1993. There were five Buran ships built, but only two were kept. again today, in Russia and Kazakhstan. The ship was mounted on a rocket model and displayed at Baikonur Space Airport. On May 12, 2002, the spacecraft roof collapsed during the process of repairing and burying the once proud pride of the Soviet space aviation industry.