[JanSolo]

What's notable is that the Russians were not able to exploit the huge lead that they had built in rocket engine technology. The RD-170 series of engines (RD-180, RD-190, etc) were so ahead of their time. Imagine if they had focused on reusability instead of aping NASA's foolish shuttle ideas.

A reusable Zenit or Energia would have been a real game-changer back in the 80s. Russian launches would have cost a fraction of what they were in the west. With cheap launch costs, MIR would likely have been maintained and expanded; maybe even to this day. The ISS would likely not exist since one of its primary goals was to engage the Russian space industry and prevent it decaying away to nothing. With Russian primacy in space, perhaps we'd see more of the 'exotic' Russian space ideas realized... like Kliper, TKS & Polyus.

[starik36]

> A reusable Zenit or Energia

There is a great episode on Energia/Buran vehicle that goes in depth and interviews the key players. It's in Russian, but the "auto-translated" subtitles are quite good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1WV5KzAUS8

[baybal2]

Zenit was reusable. The reusability elements were later removed because nobody demanded them.