In summer 1994 I had a chance to inspect Buran (boo-ruhn) hulk at its final destination in Gorky Park, Moscow. The structural prototype of the space shuttle was shipped by barge by Moscow river from Tushino were it was in storage after structural testing. The prototype was to become a "space" theme cafe where clients will be served with tube packed cosmonaut meals and entertained with space simulator build in the cockpit area.

The cafe was not open yet: carpenters were finishing floor inside of cargo bay, the ship was to get the authentic paint job min symbols of USSR and cargo bay steams were to be sealed against nasty Moscow weather. Although the body of the orbiter was stripped to shiny aluminum, the underside of both wings were covered with ceramic heat resistant tile. This tile protected Buran during reentry and did this quite well when the real article made its unmanned trip to space in late 80's. My hopes for a little piece of the ceramic souvenir were shattered by guards, who explained that it was a fake matched with original only by properties needed for structural testing. Guard let me in for a couple of US dollars and I walked inside from the aft of the prototype. The inside of the orbiter was so spacious that I was not surprised to learn that plans for cafe included two story dining hall inside Buran's cargo bay. The wooden structure separating top and bottom halves of the bay looked unfit inside of the space craft, but Buran itself was not exactly born to become an eatery.

The guard who let us in worked on the Buran space program and he seems to be very knowledgeable of the spacecraft, answering questions. Ironically, he is better paid as night guard than an employee of design bureau where Buran was created. Later I learned that the whole project was supervised and paid for by folks who built and tested Buran and presence of former(?) employee was not that shocking.

Another prototype was shown at Moscow Aerospace salon in 1995 which took place at Zhukovsky. A 180 Kb movie of this flying testbed shows the arrangement of four strapped on turbojets. This airframe was modified by Tupolev design bureau.

For more information on Soviet orbiter Buran and Soviet space program see pages maintained by Jennifer Green and Mark Wade's Encyclopedia of Spaceflight and The Soviet Space Shuttle Project courtesy of Russian Aerospace Guide. This is how Buran might have look like in orbit and docked to Mir.