October 10, 2009, 22:35 Seems a bit speculative to restart Buran when both the ESA (Europe) and JAXA (Japan) have already sent unmanned cargo carriers to the ISS recently, both which might carry crew and return from orbit it's been stated. At one time the Shuttle program or "Orbiter" as it was known on the early personal computer games, which was considered very accurate, was to be a split civilian (NASA, Cape Canaveral) and military (US Air Force, Vandenberg) program, which due to costs and objections to the militarization of space was reduced to the five shuttles for NASA mostly or, as I remember it, the whole program was going to go down in the flames of argument. The "Orbiter" simulation, though not implemented, had laser weapons aboard. Much of the arguments went on as objections to the American participation in the International Space Station were worked out. Still, it would be good to find someway to control and service all that stuff out there in orbit.

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