> the command to make it look like US STS came pretty early in the projec
I never heard anything about that, AFAIR.
Any ideas where to look abou that?
> 27. Alternative projects considered at the stages of the preliminary design and preliminary design: attempts to create OK "Buran" on the basis of OK "Spiral" - what was proposed (options and technical solutions) and what was accepted, what was not accepted, how and why.
> Orbital vehicle "Buran" in landing configuration
> Answer: We (NPO Molniya) worked on an alternative variant in a guise that mimics that of the Spiral orbital plane, but General Designer Glushko considered that by that time there were few materials that would confirm and guarantee success at a time when Shuttle flights proved that the Shuttle-like configuration works successfully and there is less risk when choosing a configuration, therefore, despite the larger useful volume of the Spiral configuration, it was decided to carry out the Buran in a configuration similar to the Shuttle configuration. Although the absence of sustainer engines on the Buran noticeably changed the centering, the position of the wings, the configuration of the influx, and a number of other differences.
> 28. Was the copying of "Space Shuttle" in a larger or smaller volume during the creation of Buran deliberate or were there "directive instructions"?
> Answer: Copying, as indicated in the previous answer, was, of course, completely conscious and justified in the process of those design developments that were carried out and during which, as already indicated above, many changes were made to both the configuration and the design. The main political requirement was to ensure that the dimensions of the payload compartment were the same as the payload compartment of the Shuttle.
https://www-buran-ru.translate.goog/htm/archivl.htm?_x_tr_sc...
Classic Soviet risk-averse behavior. See also: copying every single detail from the B-29 because they knew it worked and it would be their heads (perhaps literally) if the Tu-4 didn't. They did the same thing with Joe-1, their first atomic bomb test. Do what you know works so you can go home at the end of the day. Innovation is a luxury.
This is what happens when employees fear management. Lessons to be learned.
You just listed the things what management decided to do, so risk aversion was on management side, not employees.
Just like the idea to copy S/360.
I guess I was wrong on that part. Interesting that Spiral had greater capacity, I thought the opposite based in some of the sketches - possibly I mixed up sketches of another MiG space plane.
Wish someone manages to one day do a definitive history translated into English
US' STS shape was ultimately dictated by its cross range requirements combined with cargo capacity. Explicit case of function leading to specific form.
Buran didn't require the same huge cargo capacity in the orbiter, because Soviets had already tested and verified self-assembly of space station in orbit from multiple launched modules (technology that they would later employ in ISS). For huge capacity it had Energia, which once proven could be also launched on Polar orbits (the specific requirements from USAF for STS involved heavy cargo on polar orbits from Vandenberg).
This meant that Buran orbiter had wider design space to explore, and previous experiments in crewed reusable spacecraft were centered around lifting body shape, to extent much higher than STS was. However, the command to make it look like US STS came pretty early in the project, in addition to general lack of documents, so we don't really know how they would go.