I could care less about Buran, but the heavy lift capability of the Energia
booster would be nice to have (c.f.,
http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewnews.html?id=364). This would have the
cargo capability equivalent to Zubrin's Shuttle-derived Ares booster (or
Shuttle C), and could do wonders for any extraterrestrial resource
utilization scheme (e.g., Mars, Luna, asteroids) that might come along.

But don't count on it. It seems every few weeks Russia announces that
they're going to do something new and wonderful with their 22 cent yearly
budget.

One thing that does make this seem a wee bit more feasible than the other
ideas that Russia has floated recently (e.g., new Russian space station;
baloney!) is that the big GEO communication birds keep getting bigger and
bigger...

Ron Menich