Buran at the hospital
After the collapse of the USSR the Russia suffered of a huge economic crise. To make easy money some design bureaus and research centers, now privates, sold some of their pieces to people. Unfortunatly, the Buran project was not a exception of the rule.
So, an hospital of the Moscow’s suburbs bought a cockpit of the Buran space shuttle, to transform it into a pressurized room. Unfortunatly, the new owners saw rapidly that work will be too enormous and then decided to re-sell it to a scrap merchant. But in that case too the price to move it was too important to make a good financial transaction, so they decided to put the cockpit on a pedestal to expose it like a monument, after having blocked up the trap (air lock to the payload bay) to avoid deterioration.
Thanks to the stainless alloy the cockpit doesn’t need any care and it is hard to believe that it has been here for years.
If you want to make a ride, it’s here.
Posted on:
2009-07-06 under
Buran.
3 comments
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Comments
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Comment
from
Stefan Ulsamer
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I also would like to know the origin of this cockpit, to which orbiter did it belong?
By the way, maybe you remember me from the nasaspaceflight forum, where my username is stefan1138
Thanks and keep up the good work
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Comment
from
Vassili Petrovitch
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When I was there it was really impossible to get closer, the security argued it was a military hospital so no tourists allowed.
Some chief told me that it was a gift from the Space agency, but it’s a little bit vague.
Yes I remember you Stefan 
Comment from lacalaca
Time: 2009-07-26, 4.01
Wow. Is there any information about the origin of that cockpit frame? Did it belong to a test vehicle or one of the supposed-to-flight shuttles? As far as I know, the locations from models 1.01 Buran to 2.02 are known, and 2.03 was scrapped. Maybe that cockpit is one of the few parts of 2.03 that was actually produced and wasnt demolished afterall.