Russian urban explorer and photographer Ralph Mirebs somehow managed to gain access to the world’s first operational space launch facility: the Baikonur Cosmodrome located in the desert of Kazakhstan. The former Soviet Space Shuttle Program was shut down due to lack of funding shortly after the callapse of the Soviet Union. Since then, the huge abandoned hangar which houses the degenerating remains of two prototypes used by the defunct space program has been left to deteriorate in isolation. The two shuttles are from the Buran space program which ran from 1974 to 1993 and only saw two orbital flights. These pictures of their remains are eerily breathtaking

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