The name “Buran” actually refers to a specific spaceplane vehicle that flew on the only flight of the Soviet Space Shuttle program on November 15th, 1988 internally known as Orbitaknyy Korabl or “orbital ship” with a number. The Soviet Space Shuttle is commonly referred to by a single name by the media (both East and West) that would be similar to uniting all of the NASA Space Shuttles under a single name, like “Columbia” rather than “the Orbiter” or “STS”.
This is the sad story of the Soviet Energiya-Buran Space Shuttle program and this was passion project for me as a massive space nerd. In the mid-1980's, the Western world would see how closely the USSR had been eyeing the NASA Orbiter when the Buran Space Shuttle was rolled out. During this, the USSR launched their very successful Mir space station, but kept close tabs on the US Space Shuttle program with an air of suspension.
Where the Soviets would reuse the same basic spacecraft, the Soyuz, to this very day, the US would turn to a massive development project to develop the first reusable space vehicle that would be an "orbital pickup truck" for the planned NASA space station Freedom. Once NASA landed men on the Moon, the Space Race was seemingly over and both space programs entered into different phases of space exploration that did not always mirror one another. Early on, the USSR was able to launch the first satellite, first dog in space, first man in space, first woman in space, the first space walk but their strain of victories wouldn't last. In those heady days of the Soviet and US Space Programs, it was our Nazi scientists verse their Nazi scientists in a race of technological achievement, national pride, milestones, and international bragging rights. The Cold War was fought on many fronts and one of them was the final frontier.
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