>>1298186>Though to their credit they did do an unmanned launch and landing with it.Yes, I agree. As much as it was an off-brand space shuttle, it was better at being a space shuttle than thr Space Shuttle.
>>1298397>It was better than the first shuttle even after they realized the who STS concept was retarded. The Soviets actually had to build one themselves because they had no idea why anyone would actually do it.That was more because the Soviet Union saw the Space Shuttle and immediately realised that it was no space exploration craft, it was a military spaceplane and it was going to be used for military purposes. When the United States annouced that they were building a second launch facility at Vandenburg AFB for Polar and Sun Synchronous Orbits, the Soviet engineers realised that by the 1st orbit, the Space Shuttle would pass over Leningrad, Moscow and other major Russian SFR major cities.
It was this which lead to the political decision to order the construction of a Soviet shuttle, and that's how Burarn came to be.
You see, after Ronald Regan's Strategic Defence Initiative (a.k.a. Star Wars), the USSR took any threat seriously when it looked like the US were in a position to launch nuclear weapons from orbit, and that would have included orbital nuclear warhead platforms.
The construction of the Space Shuttle launch facility at Vandenburg AFB was cancelled after the Challenger Disaster, and all further military use of the Space Shuttle was also ended, however some Department of Defence missions continued with NRO satellites being deployed. However, the classified nature of many missions did lead to several issues. STS-27, for example had debris strike the thermal tiles on launch, leaving a part of the shuttle exposed. STS-27 survived, but the decision was taken to still re-enter. When the same decision was taken for STS-107, we saw the Columbia Disaster.
The Soviet Union knew that the Space Shuttle was a death trap, but the politicians ignore it.
