U.S. Marine Lt. Ben Reid from 1/2 Charlie Company of Task Force Tarawa waits to be medivaced after being hit with shrapnel and a machine gun round, in the southern Iraqi city of Nasiriyah, on March 23, 2003. The Marines suffered a number of deaths and casualties during gun battles throughout the city. (Photo by Joe Raedle via The Atlantic)

Performers Aidee Arely Ramirez Arellano (left) and Viridiana Mayte Arica Rico from Banda Monumental De Mexico who are part of this year's Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo cast, display their Monarch butterfly costumes in Princes Street Gardens, Edinburgh on Thursday, August 25, 2022, ahead of the final weekend of this year's show, Voices. The butterfly costumes are a tribute to the Duke of Edinburgh and the Queen's Platinum Jubilee, inspired by an image of the Duke of Edinburgh watching the butterflies migration during a trip he attended to support conservation of the species. (Photo by Jane Barlow/PA Wire)

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)

Space Shuttle Discovery is towed from the shuttle landing facility to the orbiter processing facility at Kennedy Space Center on April 20, 2010 in Cape Canaveral, Florida. Discovery's landing attempts at KSC were scrubbed yesterday due to unacceptable weather conditions. Discovery is returning from a successful mission to the International Space Station. (Photo by Matt Stroshane/Getty Images). CAPE CANAVERAL, FL – APRIL 20 2010

Space Shuttle Discovery leaves the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) on its way to the Orbiter Processing Facility at Kennedy Space Center August 11, 2011 in Cape Canaveral, Florida. Space Shuttles Endeavour and Discovery switched buildings as they are being decommissioned with the end of the Shuttle program. (Photo by Roberto Gonzalez/Getty Images)

These rare photos capture the Flight Deck (cockpit) of the Space Shuttle Endeavour, fully powered for one of the final times. Just a few weeks later, at 9:58am EDT on May 11, Endeavour was powered down for the final time in history. It was the last of the three space shuttles to have power. Below, other views show the mid-deck, gutted of its lockers and storage areas, and three final photos show the white room entrance in the Orbiter Processing Facility, signed by thousands over the years.

NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman and European Space Agency astronaut Alexander Gerst (not shown) works outside the space station's Quest airlock in the first of three spacewalks for the Expedition 41 crew aboard the International Space Station in this NASA image released October 8, 2014. (Photo by Reuters/NASA)

A helicopter pours water over a wildfire with the Space Shuttle Endeavour seen through heavy smoke in the background April 27, 2011 in Cape Canaveral, Florida. (Photo by Roberto Gonzalez/Getty Images)