Why were the Russians always able to land their cosmonauts on land while we had to land our astronauts on water? –Jim Blewer, Alameda, California
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The Russian space center is located in central Asia in the midst of a huge unpopulated grassland. Landing nearby seemed like the obvious thing and was only slightly more challenging technically than landing in water. Both U.S. and Russian spacecraft slow themselves with retro-rockets to start their descent, then open parachutes once they reach the atmosphere. The difference is that the Russian craft fires another smaller set of retro-rockets just before touchdown to soften the impact. I’m told it’s still a bumpy landing, although all the cosmonauts seemed to have lived through it. (One cosmonaut was killed when his spacecraft’s parachute became tangled during reentry, and three more died when their cabin lost pressure just before descent, but the accidents would have been fatal even if they’d occurred during a water landing.)
