RIP: First space-walk badass Alexei Leonov, who made it to 85 despite best efforts of Soviet machine Alexei Leonov, the first man to float out of a capsule and into space, has died at the age of 85. As well as his Voskhod 2 antics, Leonov commanded the Soyuz portion of 1975's Apollo-Soyuz Test Project (ASTP) and, in an alternate history, could have walked on the Moon. He was also notable for dodging disaster, be it his …
His fears were soon realised as plans for a manned circumlunar mission were dropped following the landing of Apollo 11, and Leonov's hopes to walk on the lunar surface were dashed thanks to the USSR's monster N-1 rocket proving to be explosively unreliable.
Completely fake news! The N1 rocket was actually explosively very reliable - it exploded 100% of the launch attempts!
at Technik Mueseum Speyer
"The BURAN prototype OK-GLI shown in the museum was built in 1984 and was used for testing glidingflight and landing after reentry into the atmosphere. During this part of the project the OK-GLI completed 25 atmospheric flights between 1984 and 1989 and significantly contributed to the successful orbital flight of a BURAN shuttle in 1988."
https://speyer.technik-museum.de/en/
Auto & Technik Mueseum Sinsheim (Concorde and TU-144)
https://sinsheim.technik-museum.de/en/
Speyer is near Mannheim, and Sinsheim is near Heidelberg
The "Tsiolkovsky State Museum" (was called "Tsiolkovsky SPACE Museum" when I was there), has/had a big Buran display when I was the back in the nouties. About 3 hours by train from ( Kievskya station), Moscow.
Not as big as other space museums I have visited, but interesting to get the Soviet angle on it.
Kaluga* is an unremarkable town otherwise, but the old style Soviet hotel down the side road opposite the museum used to served the BEST Borscht.
It also had plentiful hot water, unlike the "Century 21st" hotel they steered tourists towards.
*Kaluga's only other claim to fame is the LARGEST pot hole I have ever seen; so big (wide and a couple of feet deep), the bus I was on went through a field to go around it. I jokingly told a local taxi driver that I didnt understand why the Russian kept claiming to be worried we would invade them - when didnt have a tank that could survive their roads.
He has had a good innings, at least. I raised a glass when first I heard of his death a few days back.
I visited the space museum in Samara, Russia once, and as you enter you walk underneath a full-size Soyuz carrier rocket. Inside there are many capsules, spacesuits, and full-size models of satellites. It was really amazing how small and cramped these craft were. It took some real guts to get into such a little capsule atop such a massive rocket.
there is a Buran at Baikonur which you can peer into. The flight deck looks decidedly agricultural, a sort of democratisation of the genre.
Should Voskhod not be better described as two-person spacecraft? I think there were plans to include one of the female space corps in a mission.
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