The Buran did fly in space – just once, in November 1988, not long before the Soviet Union collapsed. Its lone mission was uncrewed. The Buran relied on an automated launch sequence, rode on an ...

Summary: Despite the clear parallels between the American and Soviet designs, including the external similarities and the utilization of shared technology, the Buran program embodied Moscow’s ambition ...

The Buran spacecraft was the Soviet Union's response to NASA's Space Shuttle, developed during the peak of Cold War rivalry. On the surface, it looked nearly identical - but its origins tell a deeper ...

Unbeknownst to the world, as America launched its first Space Transportation system in 1981, Russia was in the middle of building its own space shuttle, the Buran, based on stolen blueprints and ...

I sometimes wonder where we would be now, as a species, had the Soviet Union not collapsed and continued its space race with the United States. Would we have already colonized other planets by now, or ...