Whenever I see the Buran, I think of how it must have been for the engineers and scientists who developed this plane and the Energija.

They were more or less finished with one of the finest launch systems that came late, but had a few advantages over the US version - and then your country simply disintegrates and you can just feel that this thing you have worked for for years just won't have a great future.

Then, they got one flight and after that, everything was just mothballed. Must have been a shitty time - too bad that most in that generation of ex-Soviets, few write a fluent English. I'd be interested in how that felt for them.