Transport of Buran, the Russian space shuttle, to Speyer science museum

[Andreas]

Here are some scenes that you don't see every day - a very special transport on the Rhine river, not very far from my hometown. At the moment, one of the Russian "Buran" spaceships is being shipped to the science museum in Speyer. The "Buran" is basically a twin to the US Space Shuttle, but unfortunately, the program was cancelled due to financial troubles during the end of the Soviet Union, before Russian cosmonauts had a chance for a manned flight into space.

The "Buran" (Russian for "snowstorm") spaceship is one of several models, and it already experienced quite an oddyssey, such as being part of an exhibition during the Summer Olympics in Sydney, and stopovers in Singapur and Bahrain. Together with one of my astronomy club colleagues, I went to Bingen at the Rhine river, where we boarded one of the tourist ships, in order to see the transport.



The first approach to the "Buran", the city in the background is Oberwesel, with one of the countless castles along the Rhine river. Another passenger ship "escorted" the transport during the whole time, I can only assume that it was chartered by some freak who just couldn't get enough of the Buran.



The Buran on the barge, along with its convoi, a tugboard and a small accompanying boat. Look at the size of the green truck in front of the spaceship in order to get an idea of the dimensions. The truck has a GPS device that transmits the current position, which can be tracked in realtime via internet.



A closer look, where you can see that smaller barges have been attached to the large one, probably in order to protect the wings during berthing, and to avoid capsizing. The large fin of the spaceship was dismounted as well, because it couldn't pass the Rhine bridges otherwise.



A nice view of the back. Also, notice the spectators in the background, which caused quite some traffic jam here and there. We left the ship at Oberwesel and went back to Bingen by train after the passage.



Of course, the train is much faster than such a large transport, esp. since they were going upstream. So when we passed Bacharach, we had a second chance to see the convoi. In the background, you can see the houses of Lorch.



We left the train in Bingen, where we started our journey, and went to a café for a snack. About half an hour later, the Buran should pass the "Binger Loch", formerly an infamous river bend with lots of rocks and rapids. Even today, the current is very strong here, so ships that go upstream go very slow. Today, there was quite a traffic jam in this section, up to 15 ships could be seen at the same place at once!



Obviously, there were countless spectators in Bingen as well, which lined up the waterfront and the bridge over the Nahe river, which flows into the Rhine river here. Bingen is currently preparing for a garden show, which opens next week, so the city already got a glimps of the traffic-snarl that is to be expected.



After the delicate passage of the Binger Loch, the transport passes the Niederwalddenkmal with the "Germania" statue, from where you have a fantastic view across the Rhine valley. A bit more to the right, Rüdesheim am Rhein with the famous "Drosselgasse" is located.



Also at the Bingen port, where we started our journey, lots of spectators had gathered, and the fire ship from Wiesbaden, which has escorted the passage through the Binger Loch, presented a water spectacular for the visitors.

[TheTeaCat]

I didn't even know the Russians had a copy but then again i should have known.

wonderful pics
thanks for sharing


TTC

[Yoman]

Excellent Pictures  If I recall correctly two were built, and one was destroyed in a hanger collapse at Baikonur cosmodrome. NASA should've patented the Space Shuttle I guess

Now is this museum getting the Buran temporarily or permanently, because last I recall it was on display in Moscow?

EDIT - Yep, first one got destroyed Linky, what a shame.

[Jonathan]

Cool that is not something you see every day at all.

I just can't quite understand the size of it, looks smaller then the American shuttle. And kind of boxy, no offence to the Russians.

Still nice pictures.

[Andreas]

As far as I know, they built two Buran spaceships and six mock-ups for testing. The one that is going to the Speyer science museum is one of the mock-ups, and it was the only one that actually performed unmanned test flights. So it's not the one that can be found in Moscow, and it will stay permanently in Speyer. The museum has two sites in Speyer and the nearby Sinsheim, and the exhibit also includes a retired Concorde, the Russian Tupolev Tu-144 (it's the only place in the world where both supersonic planes can be seen), a Boeing 747, an IMAX Dome and an IMAX 3D cinema. Truly a great place, well worth to visit if you're in the vicinity.

[Getron]

I have read about this transport in Dutch newspaper. If I read correctly the Russian Spaceshuttle Buran (Snowstorm in Russian) is as of this summer, the newest attraction at a space exhibition.

Was nice story about the shuttle and the problems shipping it from Russia to the Middle East and the to Rotterdam. And that the shuttle had made a fall in Bahrein and had some damage.

[Xiziz]

Nice Pictures there, enjoyed seeing them
I'll put that on my places to visit in the future list

Cheers

[SimFox]

yeah... quite a fall from Grace...
that is the way it was supposed to travel:

[Andreas]

It's been more than a year since the transport of the Russian spaceship "Buran" across the Rhine river to the Technik-Museum in Speyer, but a few day ago, my cousin wrote me an e-mail, telling me that he planned to visit the museum, and if I'd like to join him. Since I was planning a visit anyway, I said yes, and today, we went to Speyer.



The focus of the museum lies on airplanes, vintage cars, locomotives, and a few months ago, a space exhibition was opened in a new building, with the Buran as the centerpiece. When approaching the museum, you can already spot several planes that are placed on pillars, and many of them can be visited from the inside via staircases.



Not far from Speyer, a sister museum is located, the Auto- und Technikmuseum Sinsheim. It displays airplanes, racing cars, motorcycles, steam engines and more, and it's the only place worldwide where you can see both supersonic planes, the Concorde and the Tupolev Tu-144. Both museums also have an IMAX cinema. The one in Speyer is an IMAX dome with a spherical screen of more than 800 m² (8600 sq. ft.), and the one in Sinsheim is an IMAX 3D with a 1000 m² (10800 sq. ft.). In Speyer, there's a "regular" IMAX as well, but apparently, it is not used at the moment, so only "normal" movies are shown there (i. e. a promotional trailer that barely covers 1/8th of the screen ).



Highlight on the large open-air ground are the various airplanes, i. e. a Boeing 747 and an Antonov 22, the largest propeller freight plane worldwide. From the observation deck below the Boeing 747, you have a great view across Speyer and the Speyerer Dom (the cathredral of the city).



If you visit the various - often rather tight - planes and helicopters, and then enter the Antonov 22, you're amazed by the huge space that is available. There's surely a lot that can be loaded into this plane!



A pic for all railway fans, a BR 01 of the Deutsche Reichsbahn. Built about 70 years ago, it has the power of more than 2000 horses and a max. velocity of 120 or 130 kph (75 mph). The tender carries 10 tons of coal, and the engine has room for 30 m³ (6600 gallons) of water. A truly amazing piece of technology, esp. if you see it live.



We also discovered a Chinese steam engine; I don't remember all data, but apparently, they were used until not too long ago.



But finally to the main reason why I wanted to pay the museum a visit: the Buran. Right after entering the space exhibition hall, it already dominates the view. It's also a good amount larger than I had it in mind when seeing it on the freight barge on the Rhine river.



Esp. the engine section is quite large, even with the widest angle of my zoom lense, I wasn't able to get the complete spaceship on the pic. It shows that they did quite some restauration here, but then again, the Buran looks back on quite an odyssey when traveling around the world.



The surface below has been laid out with black, polished stone in the shape of the the spaceship. It looks almost like it's hovering in the air, just mounted on three little black pyramids.



Here's a pic of the ceramic tiles of the heat shield. They create a layer of some 10 cm (4") around the lower side and the bow, and they look rather raw. But since the Buran in Speyer is one of the two that has been in space already, I assume they had to absorb quite some heat already.



Apart from a view into the lower freight deck, you can also climb some stairs for having a look into the cockpit and the upper freight doors.



From the gallery on the side of the walls, you can have some more interesting views. The freight doors look rather thin from this perspective, but they create an opening of several meters.



The cargo bay holds several models of satellites and lab modules. The black globes in the foreground are oxygene tanks, I assume.



There's an extensive exhibition about "40 years since the first landing on the moon" and space travel in general. A large model of the ISS has been mounted at the ceiling.



Of course, the rest of the museum is very interesting as well. Many vintage cars and planes can be seen, and many of them have been set up in a nice scenery, like this Lufthansa Junkers Ju 52.

Finally, a nice panoramic image of the space exhibition hall, which shows the Buran again, as well as the other exhibits.

If you're interested, I can upload the pics in high resolution to Rapidshare or something like that, here's an example of the first Buran pic that I uploaded to ImageShack.

[Xiziz]

Wow! I so wish I could go there someday! These images are so Impressive! And I even saw a Saab J33 Draken in the Panorama.
Thanks for sharing these pictures Andreas!