Buran Wallpapers

Shuttle Buran (wallpapers): The Soviet reusable spacecraft program Buran ("Бура́н" meaning "snowstorm" or "blizzard" in Russian) began in 1976 at TsAGI as a response to the United States Space Shuttle program. Soviet politicians were convinced that the Space Shuttle could be used for military purposes, hence posing a potential threat to the balance of power during the Cold War. The project was the largest and the most expensive in the history of Soviet space exploration. Because Buran's debut followed Space Shuttle Columbia's and there were visual similarities between the two shuttle systems, during the Cold War many speculated that espionage played a role in the development of the Soviet shuttle. However, it is now known that while externally it was an aerodynamic copy of the Space Shuttle, internally it was all engineered and developed domestically. The development of the Buran began in the early 1970s as a response to the U.S. Space Shuttle program. While the Soviet engineers favored a smaller, lighter lifting body vehicle, the military leadership pushed for a direct, full scale copy of the delta wing Space Shuttle, in an effort to maintain the strategic parity between the superpowers. The construction of the shuttles began in 1980 and by 1984 the first full-scale Buran was rolled out. The first suborbital test flight of a scale-model, however, took place as early as July 1983. As the project lasted, five additional scale-model flights were performed. With the first full-scale Buran, 24 test flights were performed after which the shuttle was "worn out". The first and only orbital launch of the (unmanned) shuttle Buran 1.01 was at 3:00 UTC on 15 November 1988. It was lifted into orbit by the specially designed Energiya booster rocket. The life support system was not installed and no software was installed on the CRT displays. [br]

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Buran Wallpapers @ Mega Wallpapers (08 Edition)