Europe to Join Russia in Building Next Space Shuttle

On Sun, 21 Aug 2005 05:08:02 GMT, Alan Anderson
wrote:

Cardman wrote:

Anyone interested can see a touchdown photo here...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:%...%D0%BD_rus.jpg

Wikipedia is often a useful resource, but the way you use it is starting
to get a little annoying. Spouting facts as if you know what you're
talking about is only impressive when you don't trip up on something
silly like this:

You can see that the rear end is quite cooked. Looks to me like they
are missing the carbon wing edges. Not to mention that section of the
back of the US Shuttle to protect the engines.

Buran doesn't have engines at the back that need protecting.

As was obvious from the line that says "US Space Shuttle", then I was
talking about exactly that.

It is clear to see from the mentioned photo that the back the Buran
Shuttle was badly damaged. It is therefore obvious enough that this
was due to lack of suitable thermal protection. That is why I said
that something like the US Shuttle uses could have well helped to
protect this engine-less rear end.

Since my paragraph also contained "looks to me", then this is nothing
more than a quick observation. I suspect that their version 2 model
soon had that problem solved.

In other words it is best to ask people to clarify their ambiguous
comments before making false claims. I well know that the Buran has no
main engines. Some nice extra cargo space comes out of that.

Cardman.