Buran Spacecraft

The Buran spacecraft, also known as “the other space shuttle”, was a Soviet era vehicle that never quite lived up to its hype. Developed in the 1980s, it was meant to rival the American space shuttle, but ended up being more of a punchline than a serious piece of hardware.

First off, let’s talk about the name. Buran means “snowstorm” in Russian, which is a pretty impressive moniker. But when you consider that the American shuttle was named after a bird of prey capable of reaching incredible heights and speeds, it’s hard not to feel a little bit sorry for the Buran. It’s like being named “Gary” and having to compete with someone called “Thunderbolt”.

Of course, the real problem with the Buran was that it cost a whole lot of money to build, but didn’t do a whole lot once it was in space. Sure, it was capable of launching into orbit and then landing back on Earth, just like the shuttle. But while the American shuttle had a whole host of missions, from launching satellites to servicing the Hubble telescope, the Buran had just one mission - proving that the Soviet Union could develop a reusable spacecraft, too.

As a result, the Buran only ever flew once - in 1988, when it blasted off into space for an orbit around the Earth before returning to terra firma. After that, the Soviet Union collapsed, and the Buran was unceremoniously dumped in a hangar in Kazakhstan, never to fly again.

But hey, at least the Buran looked cool, right? With sleek, futuristic lines and a giant red “CCCP” emblazoned on its side, it was like something out of a sci-fi movie. And while it might not have been the most practical spacecraft ever built, it did give us some pretty great memes (Google “Buran Energia launcher” if you don’t believe us).

In the end, the Buran might not have accomplished all that much, but it did manage to capture the imagination of a generation - even if that imagination was mostly focused on making jokes about how it looked like a giant space shuttle made out of a tube of toothpaste. And really, isn’t that worth something?