ISS 'nauts quit orbiter and aim for Kazakhstan splashdown Three astronauts aboard the International Space Station are leaving the orbiter and landing in Kazakhstan this afternoon. Their departure was delayed after an earlier rocket failure. No longer will Italy's first woman in space sip piss-derived espressos while her team eats caviar and showers us meagre planet-dwelling apes with …
"That's what they did for the Apollo missions. When did that change?"
It hasn't changed, it's a Soyuz capsule, it's Russian and does ground landings (it can do water landings, but only as contingency).
Water landings aren't as beneficial as they might seem. They're still quite a violent thump and carry the risk of sinking - plus the recovery operations becomes a lot more time-critical for that reason.
The lack of a convenient large ocean in the middle of Asia means that the Russians have always taken the somewhat less comfortable version of a soft landing. Then again, if anything goes seriously wrong with the braking process it makes bugger all difference which surface material causes that umpty-hundred gee stop at the end of re-entry.
A hangover from the Soviet days. Presumably they were worried that any Cosmonauts landing in the sea would quickly whittle a pair of paddles from the available material on board and row their capsule off to America.
... is a succinct illustration of why I come here for my tech news:
No longer will Italy's first woman in space sip piss-derived espressos while her team eats caviar and showers us meagre planet-dwelling apes with their flaming turds, as the crew today finally returns to Earth.
Bravo El Reg and more power to your collective elbows.
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