Comments on: Why The Space Shuttle Sucked.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 19 Mar 2025 08:22:32 +0000

knj

By: Two Weeks. « The Scientific Gamer

Two Weeks. « The Scientific Gamer — Wed, 06 Jun 2012 11:04:32 +0000

[...] Hey, you know what else was supposed to be completely reusable? That’s right, it was the Space Shuttle, and that thing ended up costing more than disposable capsules because it had to undergo extensive [...]

By: hentzau

hentzau — Sun, 26 Feb 2012 18:18:24 +0000

Yes, I know about the Buran. It’s not like the Soviet Union was incapable of doing something dumb, especially where Cold War penis-waving was involved. But as you say, they packed it in much sooner than the US and relied on their Soyuz capsules, which are now the oldest, safest and most reliable spacecraft in history (it’s made as many flights as the shuttle while only killing half as many people!) The history of the Soviet/Russian space program is littered with bad ideas, but off the top of my head I can’t think of anything that seriously retarded their manned space program the way the Space Shuttle has NASA’s.

By: Capt. Savage

Capt. Savage — Sun, 26 Feb 2012 03:08:15 +0000

Of course you do realise that the Russian’s also built a Space Shuttle, don’t you… The Buran program, which was also hideously expensive, but I suppose at least they had the good sense to pull the pin on it way before the US did… And they still have a heavy lift launch capability…

Capt. Savage

By: innokenti

innokenti — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 14:31:50 +0000

Good old USSR.