Operational, Re-usable Space shuttle Programs

This thread is about operational, re-usable Space shuttle Prgrams that have been instituted by varous nations in the world.

I will start with the Soviet Buran Program:

As to the Soviet Space Shuttle Program, the Buran...it was a massive program by the Russians that they could not afford and helped bankrupt them.



They ended up having one orbital flight consisting of two orbits. That only space flight occurred on 15 November 1988 for about three hours.

It was a monumental accomplishment...but sadly, short lived.





That was it folks. The program was officially cancelled in 1993 after the fall of the Soviets.

They even developed, similar to NASA the piggy back method of using a large transport to ccarry thier shuttle around.



So, one operational shuttle that made one flight. Sadly, that one space craft was destroyed when its building collapsed. A second orbiter was started...but never finished.

Moving on, and by way of comparison, you had the US Space Shuttle program.

That program lasted over 30 years and used five operational shuttles for over 130 missions,.

Despite two tragedies where two vehicles and their entire crews were lost, the US NASA Space Shuttle Program experienced great success, despite the two disasters.

The First flight was in April 1981
The last flight was in July 2011.

A typical Shuttle launch...which became fairly commonplace over the thirty years they were operational:



Thirty years and 133 successful missions.

Five operational shuttles were built and they were involved with so many projects, labs, telescopes, building the Space Station, etc., etc.



Two 747s were specifically configured and rebuilt to carry Space Shuttles from Edwards Air Force Base in the West to Florida for launch:



The US Shuttle had several airfields where it could divert to if necessary for landing, including both paved field, and desert airfields, which the shuttle landing system was designed to be able to use:



In addition to things like Space Lab, the Hubble space telescope, and many many other missions, including classified military missions, the Shuttle was VERY instrumental in building the International Space Station (ISS)



In July 2011, the final Space Shuttle mission was successfully launched: