Buran: The Most Impressive Thing the Soviets Ever Built
Added 2024-07-16 22:59:33 +0000 UTCIt's finally done! This one was an absolute marathon to make. But it's quite possibly the most interesting topic I've ever studied.
For all the new members who joined since the Shuttle video, I tend to upload here about 2 days before I upload to Youtube. It takes me about 2 days to do all my final quality checks on videos so this is a 'pre-release' version. There may be a few mistakes but the actual content won't change in the final version.
I'll be premiering it on Youtube on Thursday for those who want to watch it 'live'. I'll leave it here long term so members always have it ad-free.
As an aside, I've had to embed it from Youtube (it's unlisted there) because the upload to Patreon kept freezing. No idea why.
Comments
Sorry, I completely missed this comment (I get innundated with notifications when I release a video!). It's 'Molot', which is Russian for 'hammer'. 'Myasishchev Design Bureau' was indeed the manufacturer. It's further complicated by the fact there were 2 varients of the 'vanilla' Molot: the M4 which was kind of useless at its intended role as a strategic bomber. And the 3M which had various upgrades. I'll talk a bit more about them in an upcoming video here.
Alexander the ok
2024-07-24 21:08:45 +0000 UTCHopefully, this is not too late, but I was sampling some of your research for my own writing and I came up with what may be a mistake on your part or mine. I am not sure at this point. More specifically, regarding the Atlant, which you attributed to being a product of Malat around 27 minutes, when I started looking for it, the manufacturer is always listed as the Myasishchev Design Bureau. Now, I think I remember you mentioning that Myasishchev died in 1978, so he never lived to see the project complete, but I cannot seem to come up with Malat. Is Malat a Russian/Soviet nickname or something? I tried searching for it using the Cyrillic spelling "Малат" +3m and "Малат" +BM-T but wasn't coming up with anything. However, sometimes Russian translations can be weird because they tend to be phonetic.
deSkunk Works
2024-07-17 23:05:24 +0000 UTCMy cynical side always wonders if the Soviets putting highly visible crew safety provisions on their flagship projects was almost entirely propoganda-driven. Anything to appear morally superior to the west. From a practical standpoint, they did have a different mechanism for supply and demand. The reason I put so much focus on crew safety in these videos isn’t so much me trying to be ‘morally sound’, its more because its good engineering practice. If you kill the crew, youve utterly failed at your job as an engineer. With the west having a closer focus on cost/benefit, I wonder if for flagship projects, Soviet engineers had more room to add safety mechanisms. I caveat all this with the fact that the Soviets had a terrible leadership structure which caused countless accidents over the years. And these flagship projects were still very much supply and demand driven, with various departments bidding to take on the work, it was just a different ‘flavour’ of supply and demand.
Alexander the ok
2024-07-17 06:52:28 +0000 UTCOh yeah thanks- I’ll remember to add in the cards in the final version. Ha, did that intro entirely myself, spent far longer on it than I should have.
Alexander the ok
2024-07-17 06:42:35 +0000 UTCI wondered if you guys might prefer youtube for these. Ok youtube it is for future uploads (Patreon’s interface is terrible anyway).
Alexander the ok
2024-07-17 06:40:44 +0000 UTCFantastic video. Great job to both you and Artem on the visuals. Honestly I have seen documentaries with graphics and visuals that didn't look as good and were not as effective as communicating their point. Also, really nice information segmenting an d delivery. Stuff like that I always struggle with, so I know how hard it is to limit yourself and get present what you find important/interesting without ending up wandering around 50 different rabbit holes. One thing I find interesting is for society that didn't usually seem to value human life, how much of an emphasis Soviet designers put on safety systems. From the slides at the launch tower, to the various ejection options (real or otherwise), to the fact that their submarines have escape capsules integrated into their design. (Although, I only know of one case where a sailor was saved by one, still a nice feature. At least in principle.) Although, it does take up space, and perhaps maybe it would be better if they didn't have submarines that had more of their design focused around their subs not needing an escape pod. In an oddly related transition, I kind of wonder if maybe their experiences or familiarity with oxygen with kerosene based systems, may have been why they stuck with those so long for torpedos, like those that caused the tragic loss of the Kursk. (They may be completely unrelated processes. I haven't looked into it. It just made me remember that both used oxygen with kerosene as fuel sources.)
deSkunk Works
2024-07-17 01:26:14 +0000 UTCWatching as we speak, just thought I would mention that there is no pop up when you say "here is my last video" at 40:37. That may just because this is shared on Patreon and not the live version, but thought I would mention it in case it was an oversight. Really enjoyed that retro 80s intro and the PDW you had going on there.
deSkunk Works
2024-07-16 23:45:56 +0000 UTCIts better that way in my opinion, cant watch it on the tv when its uploaded to Patreon but I can cast a youtube video
Derpy_da_Derp
2024-07-16 23:02:05 +0000 UTC
