[boris]

"Buran has few predessesors. Like Bor vehicle and Spiral. I think that russian designers used some information from Shuttle project if as you say there was blueprints available. But to copy Shuttle onbase of it is impossible. If you are engineer then you agree. Can you copy RD -180 engine if you eevn have it in your warehouse? Not talking about blueprints of that engine."

In the 1980s the Foreign Technology department at Wright-Patterson AFB paid me to analyze and 'reverse engineer' Russian engines. So yes, we could copy the RD-180.

"BTW in what year those blueprints was gone into Soviet Embassy?"

It is my understanding that a flood of FOIA requests originating in Russia's Washington embassy began in the late 1970s and continued to about the mid-1980s.

--Boris

[RusIvan]

So yes, we could copy the RD-180.===

I doubt it. Of cause it is possible to make metal model of it. But there have to be some small details which very difficult to know so to copy. You have to repass all the way of R&D to know it. Otherwise you ignite your copy and it just explodes:)).
If it would be easy to copy then the manufacturer won't sell them.