Daimler Tugs Soviet Buran Spaceship, Self

Talk about burying the lead. Recently, parts of a Soviet era Buran spacecraft were floated down the Rhine river to Speyer, Germany, assembled on site, and transported to the Technik-Museum. Daimler took advantage of the tugging operation to put out a breathless press release about their Actros SLT 4160 8x6/4 heavy-duty transport tractor. Okay, the truck is pretty badass, sporting four axles where two steer and three are driven and the whole thing has a rated towing capacity of 500T. But come on — you're towing a Soviet era spaceship which might have been based on US Space Shuttle designs that were probably smuggled out of the country in some sort of hilarious Cold War era caper. Relative to that, it's a little hard to get excited about a glorified tow truck. More pics and that epic press release below. More »