A picture
featured at CBC grabbed my attention: a Soyuz rocket booster readied for launch at Baikonur Space Complex. Hey, isn’t that a Buran, right there in the lower right corner?
Back in the 80s, after all those succesful Shuttle missions, the former USSR’s space plans were leaked to Western media: it appeared that even the Russians were focussing on building their own Space Shuttle. Pictures like the one above (or the the right) dominated Western media, who were speculating about the Russian intentions of manned space flight ‘the Western way’. As we all known, these 
shuttle efforts eventually folded because of money problems but did leave Russia with the heavy-weight lifting Energia (which was originally meant to carry Buran).
It’s interesting to hear that Europe’s space agency, has renewed their interest to work together with the Russians on their ‘Kliper’ project,