Buran(s)

posted in Links by Cargo Cult on Monday June 15 2015

It's okay, you can all stop emailing me this link now.

Actually, please don't - it's bloody fantastic.

In case you're not aware, a certain Ralph Mirebs somehow got access to a forgotten Baikonur hangar containing an under-construction Buran and a high-fidelity boilerplate stand-in, assuming I've parsed the machine-translated Russian correctly. And, having done so, he took lots of lovely photos.

I thought I knew all about the fate of this Soviet shuttle programme (it proved splendid reference for areas in Portal 2), but apparently they're really good at keeping intriguing things hidden at that Kazakhstan cosmodrome.

Exif tags suggest the images were taken back in May 2010, which kind of adds to the intrigue. How secret are these things?

I think I'm in love.

Covered in slowly-accumulating bird-shit and decades of miscellaneous detritus, but hidden nevertheless.

Glass cockpit? Kind of, if you ignore the holes.

Thanks to Steve K., another Steve K., Paul T., Jeff B., Laura D. and anyone else I've forgotten!

Also, I promise to start posting more regularly here. I'm building up a nice backlog of interesting things...

Article comments (now closed)

phuzz's gravatar

1. More

Posted by phuzz at 3:43AM, Tuesday June 16 2015

There's pretty much all the info that's available, plus pictures of all the hardware that was built here:
http://www.buran-energia.com

Perhaps you should ask to be sent on a 'reconnaissance tour' to Baikonur for reference photos for Ricochet 2? ;)

Pace's gravatar

2. Hooray for updates

Posted by Pace at 11:06AM, Sunday June 21 2015

..and interesting things!

Kayleen's gravatar

3. Links

Posted by Kayleen at 10:35PM, Wednesday September 30 2015

We can email you images of cool things? I dunno your email so here's a... random link I found neat?

http://englishrussia.com/2015/03/23/two-photos-of-pripyat-then-and-now/

I should have been in sleep over an hour ago, but then I found a website full of photos of abandoned soviet stuff.

Cargo Cult's gravatar

4. Re: Links

Posted by Cargo Cult at 10:02PM, Thursday October 29 2015

(Excuse the slovenly response...)

Email's at the bottom of the page. Links welcome! Especially of desolation and destruction. Thanks for the Pripyat!

Have some bonus Soviet dereliction which I may have linked already: http://lana-sator.livejournal.com/

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