On Sat, 20 Aug 2005 23:39:25 +0200, "Rene Altena"
wrote:

How do you qualify the russian Buran spacecraft (even though it is out of
service)?

They tend to label it under a "space shuttle".

You can read more about it here...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buran

Kind of a shame that this one never had more use than the one
successful auto flight. As the Buran seemed to be a better "space
shuttle" than the US Space Shuttle is.

Obviously, having to launch all that mass in the first place, was
never a good idea. So the Russians were no doubt better off that it
did not get to replace Soyuz in the end.

Cardman.