Why Cosmonauts Have Never Splashed Down

The moment before Soyuz TMA-08 lands from Expedition 36, the retrorockets fire. NASA/Bill Ingalls) When the Soyuz spacecraft returns from the ISS, a parachute slows its fall, but not enough for a safe landing. That's why there are retrorockets on board that fire just moments before touchdown; they slow the spacecraft that extra little bit so the landing is slow and survivable for the crew. It works, but it seems a little counter-intuitive if you think about it. When NASA had capsule-type vehicles in the 1960s -- the same kind it's revisiting now with Orion and SpaceX is using with the Dragon -- the vehicle's splashed down. When NASA landed on land, the shuttle did it on a runway like an airplane. So why exactly did the Soviets adopt this retrofire landing system the Soyuz has been using for more than a half-century? It comes down to geography. So let’s be honest: the Mercury program we all know and love was a crash program, a quick and dirty solution to the sudden need for America to prove its technological dominance by beating the Soviets into orbit. A manned capsule replaced the warhead on a missile, the Redstone and later the Atlas, mimicking the blunt body shape of that warhead. It was a simple shape, which simplified the mission, which was great. NASA was learning about spaceflight as it went along, so simple was good. The Soviet Union adopted a similar approach with the Vostok spacecraft. This was also a blunt design, though a slightly more complicated one. Where the Mercury capsule returned to Earth in the same configuration it had in orbit, Vostok had a detachable conical instrument and engine module that had to be jettisoned during the descent. Once gone, the main crew module was the part that needed to come down safely.