DBWI: Columbia beats Buran

[Luath]

Hello all, whether or not you consider the space shuttle programs of both the USA and the USSR to be worthwhile or pointless endeavours the two programs were interesting duringin that they managed to trigger a mini-space race between the two powers. It would have seemed that the USA would have succeeded in getting the first orbiter into space, with Columbia due to lift off on the 12th of April 1981, when just 12 hours before lift off the Soviet space agency announced that they had successfully launched their shuttle, called Buran and known as a 'Ptichka' on the back of an Energia rocket with two cosmonauts aboard.

Buran would complete three orbits, the third of which was with Columbia in space as well, in fact the two orbiters briefly made radio contact. After which, Buran returned to Baikonur. So my question is, asides from a loss of prestige, what difference did Buran being 'first' make to space flight today?

Luath

 

[Dathi THorfinnsson]

Well, given that the US Shuttle was so very much bigger, it's really an apples to oranges comparison.

By the way, "Buran" is the name of the whole project. The actual spaceplane was

"Spiral"

OOC: The Soviets getting OTL's full sized orbiter in orbit before the US, when it was started afterwards, and they had less money, is so incredibly unlikely that I've constructed something plausible that might work. Note that "Buran" was used for the whole program iOTL, too.

 

[Luath]

OOC: The Soviets getting OTL's full sized orbiter in orbit before the US, when it was started afterwards, and they had less money, is so incredibly unlikely that I've constructed something plausible that might work. Note that "Buran" was used for the whole program iOTL, too.

OOC: Except this is clearly a world in which the Soviets had a working orbiter some eight to ten years before OTL. I mean the Spiral idea is fine, but I don't see why my idea would be impossible. Still I could be wrong.

 

[Charles RB]

Patrick Stewart's not playing a guy called Buran in TNG, for a start

The main impact in the US was probably Reagan approving the International Space Station, which I don't think would have ever got off the ground - it's amazing but expensive - if he didn't want to one-up the Soviet programme. The second-generation space shuttles would have happened out of necessity but they'd likely be cheaper, with long delays, and no resulting "Apollo '99" mission.

Hermes and Hiten are the other big impacts, as there's an impetus for 'shuttle race' that the ESA and JAXA might not have had. Unfortunately this also means no Buran means Chrétien, Baudry, and Klade would still be alive.

 

[Dathi THorfinnsson]

OOC: Except this is clearly a world in which the Soviets had a working orbiter some eight to ten years before OTL. I mean the Spiral idea is fine, but I don't see why my idea would be impossible. Still I could be wrong.

OOC: Because they can't get a full sized, survivable orbiter that early. A small scale one that's had a bunch of work done already? Sure, but that's the limit.

 

[Luath]

OOC: Because they can't get a full sized, survivable orbiter that early. A small scale one that's had a bunch of work done already? Sure, but that's the limit.

Okay, We'll go with spiral.

 

[Archibald]

OOC: Spiral ain't realistic at all, not with the mach 6 ramjet first stage. You certainly mean BOR-4 and Mig-105. Indeed this Soviet lifting body could fly before Columbia, if only very narrowly. It could be launched by a Soyuz rocket. Ok, let's go for this one.

 

[Bahamut-255]

OOC: Spiral ain't realistic at all, not with the mach 6 ramjet first stage. You certainly mean BOR-4 and Mig-105. Indeed this Soviet lifting body could fly before Columbia, if only very narrowly. It could be launched by a Soyuz rocket. Ok, let's go for this one.

OOC: IIRC the BOR-4 and MiG-105 were just demonstration articles for the Spiral Project itself, and actually were of little use since they could only really replicate Vostok IMHO.

OOC-2: What about LKS? Chelomei's Hermes-sized Shuttle that despite not being authorised for construction, was still able to make the mock-up stage by 1983? If chosen, due in part to being smaller and in part to using a lot of already-available off-the-shelf parts, while beating Columbia to Orbit isn't going to be easy, not by a long shot. It's not impossible.

 

[Archibald]

OOC: I wanted to mention the LKS but erased it from my answer. Chelomei could deliver the LKS pretty fast because it used subsystems from the TKS, an operational vehicle.

By the way: never, ever try again a DBWI with the space jockeys. IT doesn't work at all, not even for a minute.

Let's try it again:
(end of OOC)


Oh, surely, that Spiral lifting body bet Columbia in orbit by some days. The reason is that it was build by MiG, an aircraft manufacturer that thus wasn't plagued by the Mishin - Glushko - Chelomei rivalry.

 

[Luath]

Would anyone mind if I started a new thread dealing with parallel shuttle-Buran programs? I kind of feel this one has failed to launch.

Luath

 

[Bahamut-255]

Would anyone mind if I started a new thread dealing with parallel shuttle-Buran programs? I kind of feel this one has failed to launch.

Luath

OOC: Probably for the best, seeing as this one appears to have fallen back to the launch pad and taken it out.

IMHO, I still think LKS is the best bet for the given reasons, plus having an LV already ready for it, the Proton.

 

[fasquardon]

IMHO, I still think LKS is the best bet for the given reasons, plus having an LV already ready for it, the Proton.

OOC:

Proton needed a 50% upgrade. The LKS was 30 tonnes all up and Proton could only lift about 19 tonnes at the time. Chelomei was planning for the LKS to be launched by a bigger and ker/LOX propelled variant of the Proton.

IC:

IMO, the way people poo-poo the Soviet achievement with their smaller shuttle misses the point. The Soviet shuttle was properly sized to fit their needs, rather than being an oversized space-truck like the US shuttle.

fasquardon

 

[Galba Otho Vitelius]

This is of course why Cosmonauts never walked on the Moon. The USSR was always committed to the "space plane" idea, maybe because of its military potential, and being a dictatorship, frankly they had less need of PR stunts like the Apollo missions.

So one butterfly is that if the focus on developing rockets like the US did, they would have put Cosmonauts on the Moon first, which is a much bigger deal than getting the first space plane mission.