On his attempt to venture into the world’s wonders, photographer and urban explorer Ralph Mirebs saw something an average human mind cannot perceive, a discovery which is entirely unimaginable and unexpected. When he was on an exploration in Kazakhstan, Mirebs found a colossal, uninhabited building. What was kept inside of it was extremely stunning.
At first glance, the abandoned structure seems like a simple or typical building. Nothing seemed so special about it until the photographer had finally seen the whole place. Mirebs found that the said structure served as the storage room for two of the most historical artifacts from the-not-so–distant past.
What did he find, then?
Look at these images and see what we are talking about.
The abandoned structure is situated at the Baikonour Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The said cosmodrome is located a few kilometers away and is still used until the present time.
The said hangar was used during the time when Russians and Americans engaged themselves in a space race competition.
From this facility, the spacecraft was moved to the Launchpad at the nearby Baikonur Cosmodrome. Interestingly, European and American astronauts are still sent to space explorations from this site up until now.
The astonishing structure was built in 1974 exclusively for the Buran Space Shuttle program: a place exclusive for the development and creation of technology where the top caliber experts came together to construct space vessels which would take mankind into space.
The Buran Shuttle Program had a standstill in 1988 but despite this, the hangar continued its operation until 1993, what remained was the home for the three of most advanced works of technology ever made by humans.
After the fall of the Soviet Union, the structure started deteriorating. There was only one shuttle sent to space for one unmanned space exploration was initiated. Immediately after, the ship ran around and was destroyed at a different aircraft shed which fell down atop it.
Surprisingly, there is still something inside the deserted facility: two spacecraft from the Buran Space Shuttle program stay there as “ancient relics” forsaken and unappreciated for years.
During its days of operation in the past, the facility houses the most advanced and highly sophisticated technology of that time. The structure had an atmospheric pressure control system which regulated and stopped the dust and debris outside its impenetrable walls.
Now, the facility’s system has been offline for decades already.
On an even sadder note, the deterioration of the space shuttles worsens every single day, as the ceramic tiles that cover the spacecraft are peeling off and crumbling below them. The dust covering the aircraft makes its features almost unrecognizable.
The life of these pieces of space-exploration seems to reach its end really soon.
The question is, why are not they preserved? Why aren’t the space shuttles being attended to? And why, most importantly, aren’t these space shuttles kept or restored in a museum somewhere?
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