May 12, 2002 was a rainy Sunday in Baikonur, Kazakhstan, when the roof of building 112 collapsed onto Buran, the only Soviet space shuttle to have left Earth's atmosphere. Eight workers, who were on the roof to repair it, were killed under the rubble (some sources count only seven). Buran had conducted its only flight on November 15, 1988, in fully automatic piloting, without a crew on board. The shuttle had been resting for 14 years in building 112 of Baikonur, a poorly maintained building whose roof was eroded by humidity. On May 12, 2002, the roof collapsed under the weight of the rain, killing eight workers and destroying the historic shuttle forever. Buran had flown only once, on November 15, 1988, propelled by the giant Energia rocket. It completed two orbits around Earth in 206 minutes. Despite a crosswind of about 61 km/h, it landed three meters from the centerline of the runway and 10 meters from the target point. The launch had not been broadcast live, which fueled rumors of tampering. The launch video has since been made public, and it clearly shows the shuttle leaving the ground under extremely bad weather. The Buran program had mobilized more than 150,000 people and more than 1,000 companies across the USSR. It was nevertheless frozen in 1990 and officially abandoned in 1993 under Boris Yeltsin, due to lack of funds in a Russia in crisis. Fourteen years under a roof that no one maintained. After its flight, the orbiter 1.01 (105 tons, 35.4 meters long, almost two articulated buses end to end) was stored in a building in Baikonur. It rested on a model of Energia, in a building constructed to assemble the Energia and Buran rockets, and once for the lunar N-1. Kazakhstan, which became the owner of the facilities after the dissolution of the USSR, had neither the use nor the means to maintain it. Several sources attribute the fragility of the roof to its insulating foam, designed to withstand temperature differences of a scorching summer steppe and a freezing winter. This foam would have absorbed water like a sponge, in a region where it rains only a few days a year. On that Sunday, eight men were on the roof. They were trying to reinforce the structure burdened by the rain. It gave way anyway, taking the shuttle and the Energia model with it. The exact toll remains debated: the weekly Aviation Week mentioned as early as May 20, 2002, "up to eight" victims, and many subsequent publications retain this figure. For Russia, the loss had no direct effect on the space program, according to Aviation Week. Concerns came rather from Starsem, the Franco-Russian joint venture for the Soyuz launch, which used facilities at the site, and whose preparation of the European Mars Express probe, scheduled for 2003, became uncertain. Ptichka, the orbiter completed 95-97 percent, which never flew, was moved to a neighboring building after the accident, alongside a model of an orbiter. An atmospheric test vehicle, the OK-GLI, is on display at the Speyer museum in Germany. As for hangar 112, it still stands half collapsed, visible in the background during broadcasts of launches from Baikonur. The two remaining shuttles on site now attract urban explorers. Russian filmmaker Alexander Kaunas thus walked about 40 kilometers (24 miles) through the desert to get there, then spent three nights among the wreckage.