The Russian Space Agency announced on Friday that they have a delta winged space shuttle in which they say can deliver payloads to orbit. Called the Multipurpose Aerospace System (MAKS), the Russian shuttle has the same style and size as the American Air Force's recently launched X37-B spacecraft.

However, unlike the X37-B which used an Atlas 5-501 rocket to achieve orbit on Thursday, the MAKS will use an airplane carrier to achieve the initial climb to orbit. Rocket manufacture Molnia's Vladimir Skorodelov, a general designer in the company's research and development, acknowledged his country's mini-shuttle on the heels of the American launch of two space shuttles this month -- Discovery and the X37-B."The spacecraft was designed in '80s and it is still in work. This is a reusable multipurpose aerospace system of the same size as U.S. Х-37," Skorodelov stated to TASS news.

(CAPE CANAVERAL, FL) -- A
prototype of an advanced space plane by the U.S. Air Force will make
it's debut on Wednesday as it heads into space a top an Atlas 5 rocket
from Cape Canaveral.

The
29-foot long, 11,000-pound Orbital Test Vehicle (X37-B) is a white
winged craft with a similar style as the U.S. space shuttle.

"The
OTV has the potential to revolutionize how the Air Force operates in
space by making space operations more aircraft like and adding in the
capability for returnable plug-and-play experiments," David Hamilton, Director of the Air Force Rapid Capabilities office stated last week.

In
1999, NASA begun the X37 project, however the space agency handed it
over to DARPA (the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) in
September 2004. DARPA is headquartered in Arlington, Virginia.

Sorry about the delay. I'll make it up by posting four articles that touch same subject - the tragic death of Yuri Gagarin.

Yuri Gagarin, The first cosmonaut dies in plane crash

MOSCOW (PAP). The Central Committee of the CPSU, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet and the Council of Ministers of the USSR with deep regret inform that on 27 March 1968, following a plane crash during a training flight in an airplane, the first cosmonaut of the world, famous aviator-cosmonaut of the USSR, member of the Soviet Communist Party, deputy of the Supreme Soviet, Hero of the Soviet Union, Colonel Yuri Gagarin has lost his life.

In the same plane crash the commander of the air unit, a member of the CPSU, Hero of the Soviet Union, Colonel Vladimir Sieriegin engineer was also killed.

As I promised before, I'd like to share with You some ofthe historical press articles, focusing on the Space Race in the back in 1968. They all come from Polish newspapers - thus my rather silly attempt to name it in an interesting way, but I hope You will find them worthy of looking at. I'd like to apologise for my rather crude translation - I imagine not many of You can read in my language (in fact I'm pretty sure none of You can ;)), but I will include scans of orginal text as well. I also hope this will show on the page as I planned - first post in this blogging system that I'm not used to. Hope You'll understand ;)

Well, here we go.

Postponed launch of "Apollo" capsule