[X] My Assistant

[RedSky]

Here, supposedly, is a sneek peak at the upcoming... not yet released... report on the CEV/ Return to the Moon architecture:

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/media/graph...07/18731963.jpg

Here's the full article:
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/custom...=orl-home-promo

Look familiar? Basically an Apollo CSM (=CEV), a beefed up LM (4-man... but I'm sure due to budget and weight... will be cut back to 3 or 2 person).

Instead of one launch on a Saturn V equivalent, there is a crew launch CEV on a single SRB "stick" configuration, and the S4B-LM piece on the shuttle-derived vertical in-line cargo launcher... Seen here, for those who haven't run across this site yet:

http://www.safesimplesoon.com/media-images.htm

[Guest_Myran_*]

Hello Stephen, those 4 first images do show more cold war politics than what some here might think.
The dark strap on Energia is nothing less than a Soviet attempt to launch one prototype of one orbital battle platform in the arms race to counter the US 'Star wars' program.

The other images show the Soviet shuttle Buran 'Snowstorm' which actually made it on one unmanned shake down trip into space, nowadays Buran (or possibly its sister ship) serves as a make believe spaceship in one amusement park in Moscow.

The other flight ready ship were mothballed together with its Energia booster in Baikonur.

Ps: I checked on the facts, and according to http://www.russianspaceweb.com/ the second Buran that was mated to the booster rockets were first mothballed and later destroyed when the roof collapsed in 2002.

[dvandorn]

...The dark strap on Energia is nothing less than a Soviet attempt to launch one prototype of one orbital battle platform in the arms race to counter the US 'Star wars' program....

There is an interesting anecdote about that first Energia flight. It happened fairly soon before a major set of arms control talks between Gorbachev and Reagan, and Gorbachev was trying very hard to get Reagan to put "Star Wars" on the negotiating table. He wanted to convince Reagan that the Soviets had absolutely no interest in developing similar technologies for space-based warfare.

According to the anecdote, Gorbachev was informed of the test-flight of the Soviet battle station about fifteen minutes before it was launched. He was aghast -- the Americans would definitely know about the launch, since it was the first Energia launch of any kind, and the Americans were, as always, very interested in Soviet space launchers. And it wouldn't take the Americans long to figure out exactly what the payload was -- a test of the very same technologies Gorbachev didn't want Reagan to think the Soviet Union was developing!

So, again according to the story, Gorbachev instantly ordered the launch stopped. His orders came too late -- the vehicle was already on its way -- and so the ground controllers did the only thing they could do, they aborted the final stage and allowed the payload to fall harmlessly into the south Pacific after a suborbital flight. It was a successful test of the booster, and its failure to place its payload into orbit was unplanned but commanded.

It's a fact that the flight ended as a suborbital lob of the payload -- that much is verified by American monitors. Whether or not it was planned to end that way, however, is still the source of apocrypha...

-the other Doug