Almost everyone, looking at the photo with one eye, says that it has a strange airship. And having looked with the second eye, they begin to read this article.
In 1976 the General Secretary of the CPSU Brezhnev and the Chairman of the Council of Ministers Kosygin gave the highest approval for the development of the Buran project. As you probably know, this was the first and last attempt by the Soviet Union to create a reusable and multipurpose space shuttle. In addition to intractable space problems, it was required to solve one ground problem – how to transport massive components to the place of assembly and launch.
Railways in the USSR were not suitable for the transportation of such large-scale objects (why is a topic for a separate article). But Soviet engineers learned how to design and build the most gigantic transport aircraft. And just for space projects of the future, the largest transport ship in the world, the An-124 Mriya, was created. But only in the 70s it existed only on paper, and made its first flights in 1988-1989.
Meanwhile, the small but proud design bureau of Vladimir Myasishchev was engaged in the creation of ultra-long-range bombers. Since 1956, very successful 3M bombers have been in the service of Soviet strategic aviation. It was them that Myasishchev invented to use as a special transport for spacecraft.
The plane was weighed with mounts, the fuselage and empennage were shoveled, and the result was called VM-T “Atlant”. The aircraft is not very fast, but the practical flight range is more than three and a half thousand kilometers, and it could take on board over 50 tons of cargo. You can see him in the photo where the Atlant is delivering the fuel tank of the launch vehicle to Baikonur.
If you take a closer look, at the bottom of the frame you can see the crowd that has gathered to watch the flight of the unprecedented beast.
Thanks to this aircraft and its closest analogues, Energia with Buran on board was still able to complete one space flight on November 15, 1988.
Bomber 3M
Photo: Shogin Alexander / Photo chronicle TASS
If you love everything big, Soviet, be sure to read the article about the Tsar Bulldozer. Yes, there was one!
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