M-52A very cool Soviet pod cargo jet concept I found!

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Just yesterday I was reading this sci-fi story wherein an alien is talking to another alien about how much humans love modularity. How they even put attachment rails on their weapons so they can hang other weapons off of them. They weren't wrong.

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PsychologicalTowel79@reddit

I don't think we use modularity enough.

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GnarlyNarwhalNoms@reddit

Hah, me either. I really want to see vehicles like this.

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ConceptOfHappiness@reddit

Man that thing will look great with a soviet aa gun strapped to the bed

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bubliksmaz@reddit

I feel like just saying 'modularity! modularity!' is like a magic spell that mindcontrols militaries into accepting crazy shit

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GnarlyNarwhalNoms@reddit

Cellular, modular, interactivodular!

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SemperP1869@reddit

Operator get me beijing!

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dagaboy@reddit

Well, I guess that settles it then. I actually am human.

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blueshirt21@reddit

oh which one?

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GnarlyNarwhalNoms@reddit

I think it was on /r/HFY actually. I can't recall which unfortunately.

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blueshirt21@reddit

Yeah that sounds about right

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GnarlyNarwhalNoms@reddit

Oh, found it.

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blueshirt21@reddit

Thanks!

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sneakpeekbot@reddit

Here's a sneak peek of /r/HFY using the top posts of the year!

#1: Humans are how old?
#2: A Human Supercarrier
#3: Wearing Power Armor to a Magic School (64/?)

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Zestyprotein@reddit

Ivan Chesnokov? Rifle is fine . . .

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MiG31_Foxhound@reddit

Looks conceptually very similar to Federation transport aircraft from Gundam, like if a Medea and a Gunpelly had a cursed baby.

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IronWarhorses@reddit (OP)

"Russian Federation" 😆

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Dwayne_Hicks_LV-426@reddit

God this looks amazing. Gonna make this in KSP later.

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workahol_@reddit

Is that a conformal pod? [heavy breathing]

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Erikrtheread@reddit

You are looking to move to Scandinavia, not because of politics or economics, but because of how they pushed the f-16 into the 21st century.

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Concise_Pirate@reddit

Presumably this allows extremely fast loading and unloading of the plane since you simply swap out the cargo pod. But the weight penalty would be very large.

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Suspicious_Royal_270@reddit

Looks like something I built in Kerbal space program

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GustaveCroc@reddit

That's awesome, love this sort of wacky stuff

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The_LandOfNod@reddit

Dope!

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Hattix@reddit

Wait, is that a Buran under the wing?!

Exactly how goddamned big was this thing?

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propsie@reddit

It looks closer to the Smaller Soviet spaceplane the [System 49](http://www.astronautix.com/s/system49orbiter.html) which developed into the [Bizan](http://www.astronautix.com/b/bizan.html) which was also proposed to launch of the back of an AN-225

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Cthell@reddit

No way it's a Buran - the MAZ-7310 (the 8-wheeled Scud TEL in the bottom picture) is 9m long, while the Buran orbiter was 36m long.

It might be one of the smaller Soviet spaceplane projects (presumably an air-launched design, since it's all being transported in one integrated load)

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Correct_Inspection25@reddit

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikoyan-Gurevich_MiG-105

Only issue is it didn't have a payload bay or fore section like that, though possible this was some mark II of the space plane concepts that got into testing.

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redmercuryvendor@reddit

The 'payload bay' is the external propellant tanks.

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Correct_Inspection25@reddit

I mean the MiG-105 doesn't have payload bay doors (PLBDs with massive thermal radiators for orbital deployment and return) like the mini-Buran in the above clip, or do you mean in the above render, that what looks like mini Energia external tank is a payload? Open to it, but then why waste mass on internal PLDBs.

The other issue i see, it that the vertical stab for the buran-nik above would impinge on the bottom of the plane by many feet and due to the number of wings and their placement and it looks like it is nested in the external fuel tank to prevent strikes of foam or ice from due to air stream, the only place it could go is along the centerline of the mothership.

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redmercuryvendor@reddit

The vehicle appears to be MAKS-OS rather than Spiral.

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beebeeep@reddit

Yes, the label says “air launch configuration”. As far as I was able to find, this was just a general idea of system of M-52 carrier and unnamed spaceplane which didn’t really went anywhere. And the spaceplane isn’t really looks like BOR project which was under development during about the same time, in 70s.

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