A group named Exploring the Unbeaten Path broke into an apparently still maintained Soviet base's hangar and proceeded to record it and the space shuttles inside.
Video is included in the article, and it also features them spying on workers and security a few hundred yards away.
A group of YouTubers going by the name Exploring the Unbeaten Path traveled to the middle of nowhere to get a look at some space shuttles from the suspended Soviet-era Buran programme. Located at the Baikonur Cosmodrome spaceport in Kazakhstan, the hanger that the group would have to infiltrate is abandoned but the base is still active.
The world's first and largest space launch facility, Baikonur is leased by the Russian government and all crewed Russian missions still launch from there. Commercial and military missions are also staged at the spaceport, and soldiers patrol the area.
Although the explorers have numerous scares, they manage to get into the facility and spend a lot of time. They brought back tons of footage of the shuttles on the inside and out, even managing to fly a drone through the enormous hanger.
(Score: 2) by JeanCroix on Friday July 14 2017, @07:54PM (4 children)
(Score: 2) by Adamsjas on Friday July 14 2017, @08:30PM (3 children)
Wasn't this was covered by SN before?
https://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?sid=7965 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by frojack on Saturday July 15 2017, @04:03AM (2 children)
Yup I remember submitting that.
I find it amazing that sneaking into a government warehouse in the USA gets you arrested and jailed.
But in Russia, totalitarian dictatorship gulag Archipelago, etc, etc, you put it all on line and nobody gives a rats ass.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 15 2017, @04:26AM
Even the submitters don't RTFA. The hangar is not in Russia. It's at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Like another comment said, Russia leases it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 15 2017, @06:12PM
Yeah, well... These guys are not Russian and the place is in Kazakhstan. I'd say these Swedes (or Norwegians) posted the stuff online after they returned to home.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 14 2017, @07:57PM
Housing homeless Russians in abandoned space shuttles?
Nope, just another bunch of narcissistic trespassing sociopaths broadcasting their crimes.
Yawn.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Bot on Friday July 14 2017, @08:04PM (3 children)
In soviet Russia youtubers watch YOU!!!
> the hanger that the group would have to infiltrate is abandoned...
Those russkies are very resourceful, hiding several space shuttles in a hanger. Dammit.
I went to check the cupboard because I feared some soviet equipment might be stored in my hangers, and sure enough, a soviet ran out of it. Naked. Now wife seems nervous too. YOU SHOULD HAVE WARNED US THE COLD WAR WAS NOT OVER YET.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 14 2017, @08:07PM (2 children)
Relax, the ruskie was only checking your wife's oil.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 14 2017, @08:48PM (1 child)
And don't worry, Russians don't know computers.
(Score: 3, Funny) by bob_super on Friday July 14 2017, @09:06PM
They can't learn computer, because they're too busy doing them cybers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 14 2017, @08:14PM (4 children)
There were five being built to go into space. [aerospaceweb.org] Unfortunately, none have been properly conserved.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Friday July 14 2017, @09:36PM (3 children)
Are the space shuttles that were built in such bad condition that it would be cheaper to start over? (provided space shuttles as a concept is worthwhile)
It might be worth to know that Russia has built a new space base called Vostotjnij in the East of Russia. And that the 115 million US$/year lease of the base in Kazakhstan ends in 2050. So the time to act is not forever.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 14 2017, @10:53PM (2 children)
I wasn't thinking about flying these, just about displaying them in museums. It's a shame that not even one was really cared for. Whatever reasons the Soviets had for only doing one, uncrewed, flight may still be valid. Add to that 20-plus years of neglect.
NASA's Orion capsule will be reusable. If a cargo-carrying module could be bolted onto it, that would approximate a shuttle.
The STS was sometimes used for missions that could have been accomplished with uncrewed, expendable rockets. It needed a crew to land it. Buran was remarkable for its automated landing capability.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 15 2017, @12:46AM
And the lack of recovery and restoration of the Caspian Sea Monster (different larger ekranoplane with an AFAIK lower flight ceiling and no armament...)
Both of those should be in museums as well, as well as new developments. Russian still has some smaller ones in use, but AFAIK Iran is the only country to have put work into developing new models (they produced some ekranoplane 'patrolboats' in the past couple of years which they have been flying around in the med. sea I believe.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 15 2017, @03:29PM
They're a shit idea, so yeah it's still valid. It'd be better for the Soviet space program to never have heard of it. The only reason they built the Buran was they were tricked by Americans that it was a worthwhile effort and not a complete waste of money and time.