Messing around on Google Earth trying to locate bits of Buran and Energia hardware, and suddenly the MAKS propellant tank mockup appeared before my eyes, right next to a Myasishchev VM-T Atlant and the PKU-50 mate-demate device at Zhukovsky airfield. Image from 2002.

RD-150 and new Buran photos. fiftyonepointsix.com/massive-engi...

1/3 scale wooden model of the Buran orbiter at Zhukovsky in the 90s

a Buran forward fuselage test article outside NPO Molniya's Tushino factory gradually losing tiles to ebaycitis over time

Took me way too long to spot this, but Rockwell's full-scale mockup of the Shuttle orbiter was built before the design was finalised, so it features the Vehicle 4 configuration's longer OMS pods that overlap the payload bay instead of the blunt pods on the final Vehicle 6.

Hermes mockup my beloved

I now have over 1000 bits of shuttle concept art favorited on Flickr, sorted by contractor and model name

Late Phase-B shuttle looked so cool...

Some recent Buran finds. medium.com/fifty-one-po...

Another Vadim Lukashevich gem. This time, the setup for ejection seat tests during Progress flights to Mir. The first generation of the Progress used standard Soyuz launch abort towers and Progress 38 through 42 flew with a Zvezda K-36RB seat and a dummy cosmonaut that ejected after tower jettison.

A lovely image from the NK forum: a mockup of the RD-150, a 1000 tonne thrust kerolox engine for the RLA family, which later evolved into the Energia and Zenit.

Most likely drawn in 1987

Enjoy fiftyonepointsix.com/deep-cuts-vo...

How many Buran orbiters were actually built? More than you think. Here's every one of them - it's a long one. medium.com/@energiabura...

buran amirite

Ariane 5 flavors

cool lil guy on ebay

Space Station Freedom Propulsion Module!

eww

Grumman models 518 and 532.

you're welcome www.flickr.com/photos/galop...

More ALS

super cool Shuttle-C concept painting

i knew these concept paintings were really big due to the amount of detail but i didnt know they were quite this massive

sortie can and spacelab

really cool Spacelab program covers with the already obsolete early "Vehicle 1" Shuttle configuration

Rockwell docking port

one more hotol illustration

McDonnell Douglas Phase C proposal for the Space Shuttle External Tank. The design would lose out to one proposed by Martin Marietta, but the isogrid hydrogen tank eventially made its way to the Shuttle ET as part of the Super Light Weight Tank upgrades in the 90s.

Space Station Fred

!

so good

Another ALS piece!

would slap as a tshirt for nerds

hey this looks pretty great with some basic stabilisation

a lovely montage of the N1 trying so very hard and finding out

Space Station Freedom redesign at Man-Tended Capability.

bong

truss structure more over the top than the drums in "holding out for a hero" but i love both

new Mike Acs scan of "Space Shuttle Visits Construction Facility" by John Olson, color corrected by yours truly

The “Manned Spacecraft Servicing Unit" tower for Zenit launches with Zarya has just been demolished. Zarya was a propulsively landed capsule with Buran heat protection tiles that was in dev in the 80s as the ferry to Mir-2 and a successor to the Soyuz. My write-up on Zarya linked in quoted bleet.

Space Station Freedom elements by organization

two more Alan Chinchar pieces for Spacehab

I love Freedom illustrations

lovely two-engine Shuttle-C

One of my all-time favorites, the "Fred" redesign of Space Station Freedom with an integrated truss. Illustration by Paul Hudson

Neat ET-based station

original Galina Balashova drawing

Soyuz T-15 and the Mir core module.

bubble butt