[FPSPACE] Article that Buran could possibly be revived to aid US

[gorski]

On Fri, 5 Dec 2008, E.P. Grondine wrote:

} Hi Sergei->> You're leaving Israel's "need" for an ABM system out of your analysis of> the space arms race.
}??? In the times of space shuttle designing Israel was mmm a little bit busy with ordinary weapons of their neighbors.
}Yes, Israel was busy diversifying their types of nuclear munitions during the period
}of shuttle design.
}
}To my knowledge, the only reason the shuttle was increased to the size and
}configuration that it finally had was to gain DoD support, and DoD demanded
}the ability to launch reconnaisance satellites, if Delta production was going to stop.

I seem to recall that was a prevalent opinion at the time--this great
reusable manned spacecraft was going to replace conventional expendable
rockets for all uses, so it had to be big--and for bonus engineering
challenges, it had to be able to abort-once-around on a polar launch from
Vandenberg AFB, which meant a need for much greater aerodynamic course
correction than equatorial-orbit launches (compensating for earth motion
instead of moving with it, after all).  Hence, gigantic heavy wings--one
of many add-on features which made the Shuttle not all that much cheaper
than conventional rockets, as I recall.  It wouldn't surprise me if DoD
was the 500-lb gorilla that forced the scale of the craft to what it
finally became, but I seem to recall reading that the pitch was that ths
shuttle would be able to take over the entire launch business in the US,
including heavy science sats, and including retrieval (remember the half
payload bay sized LDEF?).

}How the Soviet analysis of the Shuttle as a skip bomber came about is unknown to me, and how
}the shuttle ended up being seen as such a tactical threat by the Soviet leadership is beyond me.
}The decision was made in 1987 by Breshnev, when he redirected Glushko.

Could have been leftover fear of X-20 Dyna-Soar or similar, which was
before my time...  combine that with the awareness that the US had briefly
pursued space-based military programs like MOL, and the fact that the
Soviet government had been operating military space programs under the
guise of being part of a concurrent civilian program (weren't one or two
of the Salyut stations defense-operated?), and the fact that they knew the
DoD was involved in the Space Shuttle's development early on and had had
plans for military-only missions, and I can believe a little paranoia
existed at the time.


I don't know "Russia Today" or its reputation--are they the sort of
publication to play up small rumors to sell a few extra papers?

That is--is it likely that anybody reading it really believes that the
space shuttle was meant to bomb Russia, or that Buran was meant to steal
Skylab out of orbit (..back in time, as somebody pointed out)?

--Chris.