Sergey Krikalev, general manager of Roscosmos, told socialbites.ca that engineers did not return to the idea of creating the Buran reusable orbital ship, because there was no need for it.
“The idea of a reusable ship was nice, of course, but it only works in the case of a large flow of cargo up and down. As we can see from the existing programs, there is no such need,” Krikalev explained.
According to him, the United States already uses a similar reusable system, the Shuttle. But according to the calculations of the Americans, such ships are suitable with 50 or more launches per year. There aren’t that many launches anymore.
The creation of “Buran” was carried out in the late 80s. The first and only space flight of the ship took place in November 1988 – then it was launched in automatic mode without a crew on board. Later, the Buran was not launched, although it was designed for 100 flights. But a number of technical solutions obtained during the creation of Buran were used in Russian and foreign rocket and space technology.
Krikalev noted that the 80s can be called the heyday of astronautics. Later, new modifications were created on the Soyuz spacecraft, there was a transition from the single-module Salyut to the multi-module Mir station. The super-heavy launch vehicle Energiya was created to launch Buran but can also be used autonomously.
“As a result, we have extensive experience in long-haul flights, extensive experience in building life support systems. Many things created and worked on on the Mir station were later modernized and used on the Russian section of the International Space Station,” Krikalev concluded.
For more information on how Russia and the United States interacted on the ISS in the face of political tension, why the station operated after the warranty expired, and how they dealt with cracks from unknown causes, see ISS. report Krikalev “socialbites.ca”.
Previously scientists were known to cause to develop antibacterial suits for astronauts.