09-23-2004, 08:49 AM
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#1 (permalink)
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undead
Location: Duisburg, Germany
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find of the week
( http://www.mosnews.com/news/2004/09/23/shuttle.shtml)
Quote:
Soviet Shuttle Found in Persian Gulf — Paper
German television journalists say they have found a Soviet space shuttle in the Persian Gulf, Spiegel newspaper writes.
The find could be a pre-production model of the Buran (Snowstorm) space shuttle that was launched into space only once, on November 15, 1988. The shuttle made two circuits around the Earth without a crew.
In May 2002, the flight version of the Buran orbiter was destroyed when the roof collapsed at the Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan.
The other shuttle called Ptichka (Little Bird) built in 1990 was not launched at all, and the program officially ended in 1993.
It is not yet clear what version of the shuttle the German journalists found. There are several pre-production models, one in Moscow (with a restaurant inside), another was sold as a tourist attraction for the Olympics Games in Sydney, a third is thought to still be at Baikonur. The producer of the Dusseldorf television team, Chris Maier, quoted by the paper, suggested that the one found in the Persian Gulf was from Sydney. It had completed 25 practice flights in the Earth’s atmosphere.
A German businessman, Kai Niedermaier, who works in the Gulf, decided to buy the shuttle and sell its parts via Internet auctions, the paper wrote.
The Soviet Union had six active and several test Burans. The location of most of them is unknown. After the single flight in 1988, the program quickly ran out of funds, as the Soviet Ministry of Defense realized the lack of purpose for the system, compared to its tremendous cost. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the program was essentially shut down and, in 1993, the head of NPO Energia, Yuri Semenov, publicly admitted that the project was dead.
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how wierd is that? 
Apparently it is the OL-GLI or Buran 002 model, the one that made 25 atmospheric flights to test landing procedures.
A German Museum has bought the Shuttle and will birngt it to germany shortly
__________________
"It seems to me that the idea of a personal God is an anthropological concept which I cannot take seriously. I also cannot imagine some will or goal outside the human sphere. Science has been charged with undermining morality, but the charge is unjust. A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death
— Albert Einstein
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