In the Kazakhstan desert lies an unusual
rusting relic of the Cold War space race.
Although appearing to be an out-of-place
NASA space shuttle, the craft is actually
a Soviet space program project called
Ptichka, and it has been languishing
untouched for nearly 30 years. The
abandoned shuttle is one of the last
remaining remnants of the Buran program,
a twenty billion ruble Soviet Russian
initiative to develop a reusable
spacecraft that was in operation from 1974
to 1993. The story of the Buran shuttle
begins at the height of the Cold War
with an initial Soviet plan to develop a
secret space plane known as the Spiral
Orbiter. The hyper maneuverable craft was
envisioned to steer with rotating wings
that could fold up in orbit and during
re-entry and eight thrusters would be
used to propel it in space. The orbiter
was intended to perform three functions
from space: reconnaissance using
high-resolution cameras, bombing of
targets on earth via orbit to surface
missiles, and interception of targets in
space. Primarily considered an offensive
weapon to combat the perceived threat of
the American Boeing X-20 Dyna-Soar, its
progress was closely monitored by the
Soviet Ministry of Defence. The Spiral
project got off the ground in 1962 and
was headed by the OKB-155 Design Bureau,
the team behind the development of the
MIG fighter jet. Over the course of a
decade only modest progress was made on
the ambitious aerospace system. Three
progressively complex scale models were
made including one 3,300 pound (fifteen
hundred kilogram) half scale model, but
the Spiral Orbiter itself would never be
built. Frustrated with the pace of
development, the project was shut down in
1978 after the Soviet Union realized it
was easier to steal space plane
technology than created on its own.
The Spiral design was migrated to the BOR
unmanned spacecraft program that
continued into the 1980s, while Soviet
intelligence turned their attention to
NASA's Space Transportation System.
At the time, the United States was
pouring enormous resources into the
development of its shuttle program, and
the Soviet Union felt immense pressure
to match the technology. In response, a
deeply suspicious Soviet leadership
launched the Buran program to develop
the technology for themselves which
involved a full-scale effort to steal
designs from the US shuttle program.
According to investigative journalist
Robert Windrem, the theft was
surprisingly easy to pull off because
NASA's shuttle technology was not
classified at the time. Shockingly, Soviet
spies were able to request many crucial
documents on shuttle research and design
directly from the Government Printing
Office. Spies also hacked into US
government and university computer
systems to steal shuttle research
documents in what Windrem describes as
one of the first-ever cases of internet
espionage. Early computer programs were
used to comb through the thousands of
pages of documents to identify designs
for everything from propulsion vehicles
to heat shield materials. The theft
allowed the Soviet Union to save
billions of dollars on the development
of their own shuttle program, as they
didn't have to put their orbiter through
all the wind tunnel tests and computer
simulations. A report from the US Defense
Intelligence Agency concluded that by
using US propulsion, computer, materials,
and airframe technology and designs, the
Soviets were able to produce an orbiter
years earlier and at far less cost than
doing so independently. Despite stealing
much of the technology the Buran Program
was still the largest and the most
expensive in the history of Soviet space
exploration, and at its height employed
150,000 researchers and engineers.
Construction of the Soviet shuttles
began in 1980, and the first scale model,
the BOR-5, completed its first
atmospheric testing flight in 1983.
Throughout the 80s, it and several other
models would subsequently conduct 25
atmospheric test flights to assess the
craft's in-flight properties,
maneuverability, and aerodynamics. The
models were so large they had to be
ferried around by the Antonov An-225
Mriya,
the longest, widest, and heaviest airplane
in the world
with six turbofan engines. Unlike the
US Space Shuttle Program, Buran
developed a fully powered test platform
with the designation OK-GLI. Known as the
Buran Aerodynamic Analogue, the vehicle was
fitted with four AL-31 jet engines
mounted at the rear that allowed it to
take off on its own power rather than
having to be dropped from a companion
aircraft. By 1988 the program had
produced Buran, or the Orbiter K1 - the
first operational Soviet shuttle. Though
the Buran was largely based on stolen
American Space Shuttle designs, the two
had significantly different propulsion
devices. The US Shuttle relied on
rocket boosters and three integrated
engines for thrust, while the Buran was
launched only with a specially modified
Energia rocket that detached after
liftoff.
Buran itself had no main engines,
essentially making it a space glider. A
final distinction was that the US
Shuttle required a pilot to fly it on
reentry while the Buran was
theoretically capable of landing on its
own using autopilot. On November 15th, the
orbiter K1 flew its first and only
orbital test mission, successfully
completing two unmanned orbits in three
hours and 25 minutes. Buran's
autopilot worked far better than
expected, landing the craft very near its
target while fighting lateral wind
speeds up to 38 miles per hour. To this
day, the Buran remains the only Soviet
reusable spacecraft to be launched into
space.
Shortly after this first flight, economic
problems and rising political tensions
in the Soviet Union led to a suspension
at the Buran program. After the end of
the Cold War and fall of the Soviet
Union, the project was officially
terminated by Russian President Boris
Yeltsin in 1993. The famed orbiter K1
Braun was stored in a hangar at the
Baikonur Cosmodrome, a spaceport in
southern Kazakhstan. In 2002, the roof of
the hangar housing Buran collapsed due
to structural failure in a tragic
accident that killed eight workers and
completely destroyed the orbiter.
Today all that remains of the Buran program
are two partially finished orbiters that
had been in development when the project
was cancelled and a smattering of spare
parts and prototypes. One of the orbiters,
the Ptichka lies rotting and forgotten at
the Baikonur Cosmodrome, while the other,
Baikal collects dust at the Zhukovsky
Air Base near moscow. Though largely
forgotten, the Buran leaves behind a
legacy of advanced engineering that may
have ultimately surpassed NASA's Space
Shuttle. The Kremlin truly thought that
the competing US program hid nefarious
intent behind its stated scientific and
commercial applications and engineered
the Buran to military grade standards.
Even though the Buran had only one
spaceflight, some engineers and
historians believe that had the Soviet
program continued with adequate funding
that it may have built the most advanced
and versatile space launch vehicle
humanity has ever known. [Music]