The rusty remains of Russia's former shuttle site.

A friend sent me this website today (thanks Dave) showing the sad state of the Russian's abandoned space shuttle program.   Our shuttle has been flying 30 years, but the Russians only managed a single flight lasting only about three hours back in November 1988.  I'm assuming this site was abandoned a few years later?
I wish the photos had captions on them, but I guess nobody knows what to say about all that rusty stuff.  From what I can figure out, it looks like it shows the big hanger building where the roof caved in back in 2002 killing 8 workers and destroying the only space flown (Buran) shuttle.  Another photo shows the carrier that the entire shuttle, tank and boosters would ride out to the launch pad in the horizontal position then be tipped up vertically for launch.  That little skinny dog, is that a cousin of Laika?  Someone please toss that poor starving pup a pile of cheeseburgers and a box of Snausages!

Roller coaster escape!

Are those long tubes going up to the launch gantry possibly some kind of escape slide for the crew to slide to the ground in case of a fire?  A similar idea was planned for NASA's now canceled Aries 1 rocket, but with a steep roller coaster device.  I don't know what would be more frightening, being dissolved into a puddle of human goo by a hydrazine leak or riding down the tower in that cart?
Fascinating photos that just bring up more "what is that?!" type of questions.
Let's hope Kennedy Space Center's launch complex 39 doesn't end up like this in a few years.
Here are a few more sites with a lot more information on this mysterious old spacecraft.

| Photo essay of the launch site (World of Wonder webpage) |

| Junkyard with scrapped shuttle? (all in Russian) |

| Buran-Energia site |