Why the Buran spacecraft, which was worked on for 14 years, was launched only once

The Buran space shuttle was created as part of the Energia project.the project was considered very promising,

however, the spacecraft was launched only 14 years later.Why did this happen?

Many in the USSR thought of the Energiya project as a waste of resources. But this project also had supporters.

Actually, this project helpedupgrade the equipment of many enterprises and institutions. Moreover, "Energy" was considered a key idea, around which experts built other interesting projects. For example, this is the An-225 aircraft, which was designed to transport Buran.

Engineers created the Buran shuttle so that it could carry various cargoes into orbit. In appearance, it resembled the US Shuttle, but in terms of technical parameters it was much better.

The space shuttle was able to land on Earth atautopilot, which seemed unbelievable at the time. In addition, by 1988 this project was still very far from completion. Therefore, the ship made only two turns during the flight.

The main flaw was that the ship did not have a full-fledged control system. Despite this, the first launch was successful.

The collapse of the USSR prevented the development of this project. First, Buran faded into the background, and then they completely forgot about it.