Russian President Boris Yeltsin brings an end to the secretive Soviet-era Buran project, which was the Soviet military’s answer to (and near-copy of) the American Space Shuttle fleet. Even though a second orbiter, Ptichka, is almost complete, and three others are in various stages of construction, Yeltsin and his advisors see no future for Buran and end the program as a cost-cutting measure. Due to its crash development and cost overruns, the Buran program has only launched a single unmanned shuttle on one orbital flight after the expenditure of the equivalent of $16,000,000,000.
