Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Subject: orbiters
Message-ID: <1990Oct22.051612.799@zoo.toronto.edu>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
References: <3833@awdprime.UUCP> <5758@mace.cc.purdue.edu> <1058@dg.dg.com> <359@rhum.tcom.stc.co.uk> <494@newave.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 22 Oct 90 05:16:12 GMT

In article <494@newave.UUCP> john@newave.mn.org (John A. Weeks III) writes:
>OV-105  Endoever    - (Still Under Construction)

Ick.  The worst misspelling yet.  It's "Endeavour".

>USSR
>??      Buran      Summer 1988
>??      ??          ??

At one point the second Soviet orbiter was reported to be named Ptichka,
"Birdie".  I have seen no more recent info on that.

>Both Challenger and Buran have been retiered. ...

Well, it would be more correct to say that Challenger has been buried with
full honors...  Enterprise and Buran have been retired, for similar-sounding
reasons (too far below the definitive flight standard), despite original
intents to continue flying them.  (Pathfinder, by the way, was a mockup,
not a functional orbiter, so there was no question of ever flying it.)

>...  I am also not sure whether Buran is
>the name of one shuttle, or if it refers to the whole program.

Originally it was just the name of one orbiter, with some impossible-to-
remember acronym :-) for the whole program (shades of NASA...), but now
the Soviets are displaying a tendency to use "Buran" to refer to the
entire program.
-- 
The type syntax for C is essentially   | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
unparsable.             --Rob Pike     |  henry@zoo.toronto.edu   utzoo!henry