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The sad remains of the Soviet space shuttle program

Take a look at this photo montage of the abandoned remains of the Soviet Union’s space shuttle program. They spent a lot of money just to keep up with the Joneses, for something they could not afford.

Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.


The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
 

"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News

5 comments

  • Wonder what the Russians would take for the shuttles?

  • Sayomara

    I’m surprised no one has ever tried to buy them off the Russians. While old and unlikely to flight again themselves you could likely learn a lot of them engineering wise even today. Worst comes to worst I’m sure there are American museums that would be will to take them.

    You know whats that didn’t get shuttles because they weren’t politically connected to Obama.

  • Maurice Levie

    Maybe SpaceX should buy the specs and engineering details and manufacturing machinery for the Energya rocket. Saturn V looks puny compared to that candle

  • PeterF

    I heard they just “looked” like the shuttle and were probably shoddy workmanship deathtraps. Perhaps they may have been safer because of the lack of complexity. The more parts something has the more likely something will malfunction. The million-plus parts of the US shuttle increased the danger exponentially

  • Edward

    The word that I heard is that a dozen years ago the roof collapsed on the building that housed the Buran orbiter that had made the sole flight of the program. The damage to the spacecraft was extensive.

    Pictures at the bottom of this link:
    http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question/spacecraft/q0153.shtml

    Fortunately, there were mockups and test articles that were and are at other locations.

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