Energiya-Buran

The latest issue of IEEE Spectrum has a review of "Energiya-Buran -- The
Soviet Space Shuttle" by Hendricx and Vis.

Anyone here read it? It's pricey ($70), so I'd like a second opinion
before I spend the money.

As for the first opinion, I.e., the IEEE review, it's written by James
Oberg. He likes the book: "the authors did their work extremely well ...
balanced, technologicially insightful, and will-illustrated narrative."
--
Kevin Willoughby lid

Kansas City, this was Air Force One. Will you change
our call sign to SAM 27000? -- Col. Ralph Albertazzie

Kevin Willoughby wrote:
The latest issue of IEEE Spectrum has a review of "Energiya-Buran -- The
Soviet Space Shuttle" by Hendricx and Vis.

Anyone here read it? It's pricey ($70), so I'd like a second opinion
before I spend the money.

As for the first opinion, I.e., the IEEE review, it's written by James
Oberg. He likes the book: "the authors did their work extremely well ...
balanced, technologicially insightful, and will-illustrated narrative."

There's a ton of interactive Energia-Buran pages over on a website in
Russia.
Some in English and others in Russian.
The homepage is here for the English language stuff:
http://www.buran.ru/htm/molniya.htm
....and here for the Russian language stuff:
http://www.buran.ru/htm/mapsite.htm
Follow the arrows; most of the graphics are interactive links also.

Pat

"Pat Flannery" wrote in message
...


Kevin Willoughby wrote:
The latest issue of IEEE Spectrum has a review of "Energiya-Buran -- The
Soviet Space Shuttle" by Hendricx and Vis.

Anyone here read it? It's pricey ($70), so I'd like a second opinion
before I spend the money.

As for the first opinion, I.e., the IEEE review, it's written by James
Oberg. He likes the book: "the authors did their work extremely well ...
balanced, technologicially insightful, and will-illustrated narrative."

There's a ton of interactive Energia-Buran pages over on a website in
Russia.
Some in English and others in Russian.
The homepage is here for the English language stuff:
http://www.buran.ru/htm/molniya.htm
...and here for the Russian language stuff:
http://www.buran.ru/htm/mapsite.htm
Follow the arrows; most of the graphics are interactive links also.

Pat


Or better yet, buy Oberg's new book.

Energiya-Buran: The Soviet Space Shuttle

By Bart Hendrickx & Bert Vis; Springer-Praxis, 2007; 526 pp; US $69.95;
ISBN: 978-0-387-69848-9

In 1988, the Soviet Union achieved its first and only space shuttle flight,
with the Buran ("blizzard" in English) space plane. It flew two orbits of
the Earth on autopilot and landed safely on a *runway at its launch site,
the Baikonur Cosmodrome, an impressive feat. However, its cost helped to
bankrupt the Soviet space program just before the Soviet Union itself
collapsed. Later, the roof of the spaceship's hangar fell in, crushing it
into scrap metal.
Now a pair of amateur European space historians have published the first
full account of the project, just in time for analysts in both the United
States and Russia to learn from the affair as they look to develop
new *spacecraft for human flight. There is a lot for them to learn: many
mis*judgments led the Soviet Union to needlessly *duplicate NASA's shuttle
program, which had itself been poorly thought out.

The authors did their work extremely well, relying on archives and
interviews, mostly in Russian, and they have provided a
balanced, *technologically *insightful, and well-*illustrated narrative.
All *dimensions of the project-the vehicle, its support infrastructure,
the *training of the crew, and the planning of the *mission-are an
integrated whole. Of *particular interest to IEEE Spectrum readers are
details never before made available about the spaceship's power, *guidance,
and communications systems.

The Buran was to carry four fuel cells (code-named Foton), *compared with
NASA's three. Like the U.S. *shuttle, Buran could also carry *extension kits
for enough *cryogenics to *support *longer missions. But Buran had one
big *difference: it also *carried *chemical *batteries for 24 hours
of *emergency power, in case the fuel cells failed. Because the first flight
lasted only 3 hours, the fuel cells were not installed, and so they never
got a chance to fly in space. Buran was *controlled by four
Biser-4 *computers running *parallel *software. The 130 kilobytes of RAM had
to be reloaded from tape units as new flight phases occurred. The flight
software's *development *problems appear to have closely paralleled the U.S.
experience.

Buran's radio links operated through line-of-sight VHF and UHF bands as well
as *centi*meter *waveband, or SHG (super high *frequency), which is *managed
by a set of geosynchronous relay *satellites. Launched in the 1980s,
the *satellites were also used by the Mir space *station. Following
the *collapse of the USSR in 1991, none were replaced, and the on-orbit
payloads all ceased operating within a few years.

The authors provide an *excellent transition to the post-Buran period, as
Russian space engineers tried, with little success, to salvage some of the
work done for this project. Symbolic of this is the fate of one of the Buran
test *vehicles, which ended up as a *riverside *restaurant in a Moscow park.

The program's engineering was probably the best in the history of the Soviet
space program, but because the political and social underpinnings were
rotten, the engineering work was tragically wasted.

About the Author

JAMES OBERG, a 22-year veteran of NASA *mission control, is a writer
and *consultant based in Houston. His latest book, Star-Crossed Orbits:
Inside the U.S./Russian Space Alliance (McGraw-Hill, 2002), describes
the *development of the International Space Station and the Russians' role
in making it possible. This month Oberg weighs in on a new book on Buran,
the Soviet space shuttle [p. 22], which made its first and only flight in
1988.

I recall reading that there was an intelligence failure, or so it seems to
me, on the Russian side. The top folks in the Politburo were told that the
Shuttle was an offensive weapon system, and so the Soviets felt that they
should counter it in kind.


--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

Rocky Top wrote:

About the Author

JAMES OBERG, a 22-year veteran of NASA *mission control, is a writer
and *consultant based in Houston. His latest book, Star-Crossed Orbits:
Inside the U.S./Russian Space Alliance (McGraw-Hill, 2002), describes
the *development of the International Space Station and the Russians' role
in making it possible. This month Oberg weighs in on a new book on Buran,
the Soviet space shuttle [p. 22], which made its first and only flight in
1988.


I am having a hard time understanding what you just wrote.
You seem to imply that James Oberg wrote the book, when what he did was
review it.
I still (despite repeated attempts) haven't been able to talk him into
writing "The Sea Of Dreams - von Braun, Korolev, and the Conquest Of The
Moon", which would be right up his alley.
Plenty of story to tell there as the two characters grow up in societies
that turned from corrupt monarchies into bloody dictatorships and find
themselves facing of against each other over something they both dreamed
of doing, and were willing to sell their souls to accomplish.
You've got a easily a four to six hundred page long book there without
ever running out of fascinating stories.
You've also got one hell of a HBO miniseries that could run twelve
hours, easy.
Especially given the fairly low cost spectacular CGI effects they can do
nowadays.
Hell, you'd be squeezing it to get all the good stuff into twelve hours;
and that's always the best way to do a miniseries; leave the audience so
enthralled that they want more, and feeling a bit cheated, because it
was _too short_ at _only_ twelve hours.

Pat

"Revision" wrote in
:

I recall reading that there was an intelligence failure, or so it
seems to me, on the Russian side. The top folks in the Politburo were
told that the Shuttle was an offensive weapon system, and so the
Soviets felt that they should counter it in kind.

One could say it was a failure of intelligence, yes. Not uncommon
in many political circles, where you bend the data to fit the
bosses' expectations--even when it gets bent completely out of shape
and ends up defying the facts and common sense.

Our foreign policy often works like this. WMD, anyone? Anywhere?

--Damon

Damon Hill wrote:

"Revision" wrote in
:

I recall reading that there was an intelligence failure, or so it
seems to me, on the Russian side. The top folks in the Politburo were
told that the Shuttle was an offensive weapon system, and so the
Soviets felt that they should counter it in kind.

One could say it was a failure of intelligence, yes. Not uncommon
in many political circles, where you bend the data to fit the
bosses' expectations--even when it gets bent completely out of shape
and ends up defying the facts and common sense.

Our foreign policy often works like this. WMD, anyone? Anywhere?

--Damon


The Shuttle did have offensive roots. The reason for the large wings was to
give wide cross-range capability to drop packages hundreds of miles off the
published ground track. This was back when the Air Force was an active
Shuttle developer. Those goals were dropped pretty quickly, but you can't
blame the Russians for not trusting the Shuttle.

Mike Ross

On Fri, 14 Mar 2008 15:22:10 -0500, in a place far, far away, Mike
Ross made the phosphor on my
monitor glow in such a way as to indicate that:

Damon Hill wrote:

"Revision" wrote in
:

I recall reading that there was an intelligence failure, or so it
seems to me, on the Russian side. The top folks in the Politburo were
told that the Shuttle was an offensive weapon system, and so the
Soviets felt that they should counter it in kind.

One could say it was a failure of intelligence, yes. Not uncommon
in many political circles, where you bend the data to fit the
bosses' expectations--even when it gets bent completely out of shape
and ends up defying the facts and common sense.

Our foreign policy often works like this. WMD, anyone? Anywhere?

--Damon


The Shuttle did have offensive roots. The reason for the large wings was to
give wide cross-range capability to drop packages hundreds of miles off the
published ground track.

Ummmmm.....no.

It was to allow a single-orbit mission out of Vandenberg.

Mike Ross wrote:
The Shuttle did have offensive roots. The reason for the large
wings was to give wide cross-range capability to drop packages
hundreds of miles off the published ground track.

Was there going to be a bomb-bay, or were they going to flip the thing
upside down in the atmosphere at Mach N and drop things from the
payload bay?-)

rick jones
--
Wisdom Teeth are impacted, people are affected by the effects of events.
these opinions are mine, all mine; HP might not want them anyway...
feel free to post, OR email to rick.jones2 in hp.com but NOT BOTH...

Mike Ross wrote:

The Shuttle did have offensive roots. The reason for the large wings was to
give wide cross-range capability to drop packages hundreds of miles off the
published ground track. This was back when the Air Force was an active
Shuttle developer. Those goals were dropped pretty quickly, but you can't
blame the Russians for not trusting the Shuttle.


That wasn't for dropping bombs though, it was so the Shuttle could put
reconsats in odd orbits and still be able to get back to a airfield for
landing.
As a weapon system it sucked, it would be patently obvious that you were
getting it ready for launch with days of preparation going into the
readying of the vehicle on its pad.

Pat