In the framework of the Russian Arms Expo-2013 exhibition held in Nizhny Tagil, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin made a sensational statement that the country could resume production of Buran-class spacecraft. “The future aircraft technology will be able to rise into the stratosphere, space technology today can work in both environments, for example, Buran, which was much ahead of its time. In fact, all these spacecrafts are the XXI century and whether we like it or not, we will have to return to them, RIA Novosti quotes Dmitry Rogozin. At the same time, domestic experts disagree about the rationality of such a step. And it’s probably not worth believing everything that Russian officials say. A striking example is a much smaller-scale project to resume production of Ruslan transport aircraft, which, in fact, has advanced no further than discussions on this topic.
At one time, the Energia-Buran program cost the Soviet budget very dearly. For 15 years of implementation of this program (from 17.02.1976 to 01.01.1991), the USSR spent 16.4 billion rubles on it (more than 24 billion US dollars at the official exchange rate). During the period of maximum intensity of work on the project (1989), up to 1.3 billion rubles (1.9 billion dollars) were allocated for this space program annually, which amounted to 0.3% of the total budget of the Soviet Union. In order to understand the scale of these figures, you can compare the program with the construction of AvtoVAZ from scratch. This large-scale Soviet construction project cost the state 4-5 billion rubles, while the plant is still operating today. And even if we add here the cost of building the entire city of Togliatti, the amount will be several times less.
"Buran" is the orbital spacecraft of the Soviet reusable transport space system (MTKK), which was created as part of the larger program "Energia - Buran". It is one of the 2 MTKK orbital programs implemented in the world. The Soviet Buran was a response to a similar US project called the Space Shuttle, which is why it is often referred to as the “Soviet shuttle”. The space shuttle "Buran" performed its first and, as it turned out, the only flight in a completely unmanned mode on November 15, 1988. The leading developer of the Buran project was Gleb Evgenievich Lozino-Lozinsky.
In total, under the Energia-Buran program, 2 ships were fully built in the USSR, one more was under construction (the degree of readiness is 30-50%), 2 more spacecraft were laid down. The reserve for these ships was destroyed after the program was closed. Also, within the framework of the program, 9 technological layouts were created, which differed in their configuration and were intended for various tests.
"Buran", like its overseas counterpart, was intended to solve defense problems, to launch various spacecraft and objects into low-earth orbit and to maintain them; delivery of personnel and modules for assembly in orbit of interplanetary complexes and large-sized structures; mastering equipment and technologies for space production and delivery of products to Earth; return to Earth of exhausted or faulty satellites; performing other cargo and passenger transportation on the Earth-space-Earth route.
Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Cosmonautics. Tsiolkovsky Yuri Karash expressed his doubts about the need to revive this system. According to him, "Buran" was an analogue of the American shuttle, the decision to build which was made by Richard Nixon. Therefore, the problems faced by the Americans may well be projected onto the Buran as well.
To begin with, let's answer the question why the Space Shuttle system was created. There were a number of factors here, one of which can be called the pioneer space enthusiasm that reigned in the world at that time. People assumed that they would soon be exploring outer space as intensively and on the same scale as they did with unknown territories on Earth. It was planned that a person would fly into space in large quantities and often, and the number of customers for the delivery of their cargo into space would be impressive. Therefore, at the time of the idea of building the Space Shuttle system, the people who proposed it believed that they would fly into space almost every week.
And this, in turn, triggered the law of large numbers. That is, if you do something often enough, then the price of such a single action decreases, the project developers believed that the price of one Shuttle flight would be almost equal to the price of a regular transport plane flight. Naturally, it turned out that this is far from the case, but only when the Space Shuttle began to actually fly into space. On average, it did not make more than 4-5 flights a year, which means that the cost of its launch was enormous - the amount reached $ 500 million, which significantly exceeded the cost of launching disposable carriers. Thus, the project did not justify itself from a financial point of view.
Secondly, the Space Shuttle project was developed as a type of weapon. It was supposed to be equipped with bomb armament. At the same time, the spacecraft could descend over the enemy's territory, drop a bomb, and then go back into space, where it would be inaccessible to the enemy's air defense systems. However, the Cold War came to an end, and secondly, in the same period of time, a very strong qualitative leap was made by missile weapons, and accordingly, the apparatus did not justify itself as a weapon.
Thirdly, it turned out that shuttles are a very complex and insufficiently reliable system. It turned out under rather tragic circumstances, when the Challenger shuttle exploded on January 26, 1986. At that moment, the USA realized that putting all their eggs in one basket is not profitable. Prior to that, they believed that the presence of shuttles would allow them to abandon the Delta, Atlas and other single-use launch vehicles, and everything could be put into orbit using space shuttles, but the Challenger disaster clearly demonstrated that such a bet should not costs. As a result, the Americans completely abandoned this system.
When Dmitry Rogozin announces the resumption of Buran-type programs, a quite reasonable question arises: where will these ships fly? With a high degree of probability, the ISS will go out of orbit by 2020, and then what? Why would Russia need such a ship to simply fly into space for 2-3 days, but what to do there during those 2-3 days? That is, before us is a beautiful, but at the same time completely eccentric and ill-considered idea, Yuri Karash believes. With this system, Russia will simply have nothing to do in space, and commercial launches today are very well carried out using ordinary single-use launch vehicles. Both the American Space Shuttle and the Soviet Buran were good when it was necessary to put a large load of 20 tons into the cargo hold and deliver it to the ISS, but this is a rather narrow range of tasks.
At the same time, not everyone agrees that the very idea of returning to systems such as "Buran" has no right to life today. A number of experts believe that if there are competent tasks and goals, such a program will be necessary. This position is adhered to by the President of the St. Petersburg Federation of Cosmonautics Oleg Mukhin. According to him, this is not a step back, on the contrary, these devices are the future of astronautics. Why did the United States abandon shuttles at one time? They simply did not have enough tasks for them to make the ship economically justified. They were supposed to make at least 8 flights annually, but at best they ended up in orbit 1-2 times a year.
The Soviet Buran, like its overseas counterpart, was far ahead of its time. It was assumed that they would be able to throw 20 tons of payloads into orbit and take back the same amount, plus a large crew of 6 people, plus landing at an ordinary airfield - all this, of course, can be attributed to the future of world cosmonautics. Moreover, they can exist in various modifications. Not so long ago in Russia there was a proposal to build a small 6-seat Clipper spacecraft, also winged and with the possibility of landing at an airfield. Everything here ultimately depends on the tasks and funding. If there are tasks for such devices - assembly of space stations, assembly at a station, etc., then such ships can and should be produced.
