What about to revive the Buran Russian shuttle?

[abacero]

Hi, everyone! I just joined Space.com and I love it! And to start my presence here, I share with you all something I have on my mind.

Since the Space Shuttle is coming to the twilight after a glorious career, and the needs of the ISS are still there, the Soyuz-Progress system, IMHO, is not enough to cover those neccesities. How about to suggest Russia to retake the Buran program that they dropped in the 90's because of budgetay problems?

The American space shuttle showed what can go wrong in this kind of spacecraft, and since NASA has no plans to have a similar transport in the future, and the Russians will manage the ISS, well... connect the dots... :?

 

[kelvinzero]

Russia won't, for pretty much the same reasons that America is discontinuing the shuttle. Besides which even if they did, Im sure that resurrecting a monster like the buran would take a heck of a lot more time than for america to adapt one of its existing commercial rockets to take crew.

You probably hear a lot of people saying that America is throwing away HSF, throwing away its leadership in space, but lots of people are losing their jobs so a lot of bitter things are being said.

There are strong arguments that we perhaps should continue the shuttle, but only until the new commercial HSF vehicles come online. There are also arguments that this is not necessary and that we could rely on the russians till then. After all they also rely on the US to keep the ISS running.

In the meantime, america will still have commercial rockets that can lift similar payloads to what the shuttle can (25 tons) to LEO. For example, the Delta Heavy.