Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!pacbell!lll-tis!helios.ee.lbl.gov!pasteur!agate!labrea!decwrl!sun!pitstop!sundc!seismo!uunet!mitel!scs!cognos!geovision!alastair
From: alastair@geovision.uucp (Alastair Mayer)
Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle
Subject: Re: Soviet and American Shuttles
Message-ID: <425@geovision.UUCP>
Date: 14 Oct 88 15:04:28 GMT
References: <1574@nunki.usc.edu> <3020@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> <820@super.ORG>
Reply-To: alastair@geovision.UUCP (Alastair Mayer)
Distribution: sci.space.shuttle,sci.space
Organization: GeoVision Corp, Ottawa, Canada
Lines: 26

In article <820@super.ORG> laurel@super.UUCP (Michael Tighe) writes:
>In article <1574@nunki.usc.edu> birenboi@sal6.usc.edu (Aaron Birenboim) writes:
>>
>> [.. stuff about Sov Shuttle not being a copy of US Shuttle ]

>Rubbish! I have seen the Soviet Space Shuttle, and it is almost 
      Oh really?  Where?  Or do you mean you've seen pictures of it.
>identical to ours. In fact, most Americans would not be able to 
>tell the difference between it and ours (except for the CCCP marking
>on the left wing). The most obvious difference I noticed was that
>the SRB's are much shorter. Other than that, its' a genuine
  Not very observant, are you?  They're not *S*RBs, they're *L*RBs -
liquids, not solids, and there are four of them on the Energia core
vehicle that launches shuttleski.  The main engines are also on the
Energia core, not the shuttle.   Because there are no main engines
there's no need to hang the OMS engines and fuel in pods, so the
aft end is missing those bulges adjacent to the tail.
   Wing angles and overall length/width ratio look to be slightly
different, too.
   Most of this can be determined by looking at the picture of the
Soviet shuttle that appeared in Newsweek.
  
>example of technology transfer. First flight is scheduled for early
>December; delayed probably by a need to redesign the O rings.

   Liquid boosters don't need O-rings.