Ralph Mirebs, an urban explorer and photographer in Russia, has revealed extraordinary photos of Soviet space shuttle prototypes gathering dust in an abandoned hangar. The abandoned hangar is located at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, which is still in operation today (with the close of NASA’s shuttle program, Russian Soyuz shuttles are the only way for astronauts to reach the International Space Station). The Buran prototype shuttles found by Mirebs, however, are from an earlier era – they are the last remnants of a space program that began in 1974 and was finally shuttered in 1993. (Photo by Ralph Mirebs/Exclusivepix Media)

French photographer Bettina Rheims poses next to her work, two days before the opening of her exhibition “Pourquoi m'as-tu abandonnée ?” (Why did you abandon me?) at the Museum of Photography Charles Negre, in Nice on June 13, 2024. (Photo by Valery Hache/AFP Photo)

Migrants play soccer at makeshift camp in Via Cupa (Gloomy Street) in downtown Rome, Italy, August 2, 2016. Italy is taking in thousands of boat migrants every week for a third year in a row, and friction is common between them and those who live along the path many take on their journey towards northern Europe. (Photo by Max Rossi/Reuters)

“In beard and hat”; Udine, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Italy, 2013. (Photo by Giulio Magnifico)

A masked reveller hangs from an inflatable balloon during the first day of the carnival in Venice, Italy, January 23, 2016. (Photo by Manuel Silvestri/Reuters)

A Bengal cat is seen during the Mediterranean Winner 2016 cat show in Rome, Italy, April 3, 2016. (Photo by Max Rossi/Reuters)

A masked reveller poses during the Venice Carnival in Venice, Italy February 12, 2017. (Photo by Tony Gentile/Reuters)

A volcanic eruption at Mount Etna’s Vorgaine crater in Sicily, Italy on December 3, 2015. (Photo by Marco Restivo/Barcroft Media)