http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3119861/Russia-s-forgotten-space-agency-Haunting-images-reveal-two-abandoned-Soviet-shuttles-rotting-giant-derelict-hangar.html

pretty interesting.. more info/pics at link above.

Wow

Easily restored and completely safe to use.

Sad. Will probably be us in 20 years.

So did Space Shuttleski fly about as well as Concordeski?

Forgot about them

judging by all the plywood that is a simulator.

It honestly amazes me the number of sites in Russia / former Soviet countries where stuff is just left, like the workers dropped what they were doing and walked out.

Are there sites like this in the US? Serious question

 
LOL, don't bet on it.

Buy one and put it up on blocks in your front yard.

When you haven't been paid in months, you don't own a car, and the bus service shuts down because the drivers aren't being paid either... hard to go to work even if you want to.

If I remember correctly didn't the facility holding the Buran have a roof collapse and the orbiter was partially destroyed?

Truth

This is correct. That building caved in several years ago.

one of them. there were others..

Yeh, in 2001 was destroyed (that was the only one that ever flew)

It was a copy of early space shuttle designs that were stolen after they were scrapped. Had it actually went into service It would have likely killed the cosmonauts, our own shuttle didn't have the best safety record

The new space race..

No pics of the door gunner's station?

convert it into a hot dog stand

Very cool!

Space flight is dangerous.  I think the Shuttle program performed quite well.  Challenger was bureaucratic BS and 100% preventable.  Columbia was less foreseeable/preventable I think.

What a piece of commie shit,looks like it was built by a bunch of retarded Ivan's.

Looking for duct tape repairs in the pics.

Eh...the Concord would have been fine if they didn't put Wilderness A/T's on it...

They boarded up the windows.  Just like an abandonded house.

No our Gov't spends millions after a project is cancelled to close it out and wrap up the loose ends.

3,513,638: The weight in pounds of cargo that NASA's space shuttles have launched into orbit. That's more than half the payload weight of every single space launch in history since 1957 combined.

229,132: The amount of cargo (in pounds) that NASA's shuttles have returned to Earth from space through 2010.

198,728.5: The number of man-hours NASA shuttles spent in space during their 30-year history. That's about 8,280 days of manned spaceflight, NASA officials said.

20,830: The number of orbits of Earth completed by NASA shuttles before the last 13-day mission of Atlantisduring the STS-135 flight. Atlantis will add another 200 orbits to that tally.

3,000: The scorching hot temperatures (in Fahrenheit) experienced by NASA shuttles in the hottest moments of atmospheric re-entry during landing.

1,323: Number of days in space spent during NASA shuttle flights between April 1981 and July 2011. That includes the 13 days of the final shuttle flight, as well as the other 31,440 hours, 59 minutes and 33 seconds of all 134 other missions.

833: The total number of crewmembers of all 135 space shuttle missions, with some individuals riding multiple times and 14 astronauts killed during the Challenger and Columbia accidents.

789: The number of astronauts and cosmonauts who have returned to Earth on a NASA shuttle. Some spaceflyers actually launched into orbit on Russian Soyuz vehicles and returned home on a shuttle.

355: The actual number of individual astronauts and cosmonauts who have flown on the space shuttle. That breaks down to 306 men and 49 women hailing from 16 different countries.

234: The total number of days space shuttle astronauts spent at the International Space Station between 1998 and 2011, the construction phase of the orbiting laboratory.

180: The total number of satellites and other payloads, including components for the International Space Station, deployed by NASA space shuttles.

135: Total number of NASA space shuttle missions that will have flown between 1981 and 2011. NASA added the prefix of "STS" (Space Transportation System) to each shuttle mission. Of the 135 missions, 133 flights went as planned, with two ending in disaster. [Most Memorable Shuttle Missions]

52: The total number of satellites, space station components and other payloads returned from orbit on NASA shuttle missions.

37: The number of times a NASA shuttle has docked at the International Space Station during the outpost's lifetime.

14: The number of astronauts killed during the space shuttle Challenger accident of 1986 and Columbia accident in 2003. They are: (Challenger's STS-51-L Crew) Commander Francis "Dick" Scobee, pilot Mike Smith, mission specialists Judy Resnik, Ellison Onizuka and Ron McNair, and payload specialists Greg Jarvis and Christa McAuliffe; (Columbia's STS-107 Crew) Commander Rick Husband; pilot William McCool; mission specialists Michael Anderson, David Brown, Kalpana Chawla and Laurel Clark, and payload specialist Ilan Ramon, Israel's first astronaut.

Compare Soyuz record to space shuttle, it is a little safer, fwiw

No. The soviets where the as concerned about crew safety.

Doubt it. The government hasn't just up and ended like the soviets did. Yet.

Sad.  Imagine what would have been possible with the Russians and the West working together since WW2, rather than against each other.

What a crappy program.  We should have been at Jupiter by now!

Not as many and or as spectacular but yes, kind of. IN your state Maryland Point Observatory comes to mind

Much less would have happened.

Competition breeds innovation.

Steel foundries in  pittsburg





 

Very cool, I love the old cold war relics

And ours are now resting in museums making us dependent on those stupid ruskies for human launch capability.

Very fitting to your avatar that you would come across this

There were sites along the Norway/Finnish border (Kola peninsula) where it looked like the former Soviets ate their final meal and got up from the table and left. Dishes and pots still on the table, clothes hanging on hooks, abandoned equipment, etc.



http://englishrussia.com/2009/03/31/dead-towns-of-kola/

wow, it looks fairly unchanged

And we destroyed all the supporting infrastructure with an unusual level of speed and efficiency for a government run project. I dunno quite what to make of that.

One flight wonder

Its like those creepy abandoned  Russian rocket factories.

Well, they all ended up as simulators... never made a manned launch IIRC.

How many pounds of cargo has Soyuz returned from orbit?

The back haul sucks, no wonder it's so expensive.

They had the hanger that one of them was in collapse on it due to no maintenance of the building.

Detroit