Water or Land?

NASA is currently trying to decide whether its new Orion spacecraft will land in water, like Apollo, or on land, like Soyuz.

The basic difference of the two superpowers in the race to the Moon reflected the different strengths of the US and the USSR. Apollo landed in water because oceans are fat targets, and the US Navy was capable of operating in the bluest of blue water. The Soviet Navy in the early 1960s, on the other hand, was basically a coastal defense force. What the USSR did have, however, was land-- huge areas of empty steppe. Soyuz-- which has still yet to roam beyond low Earth orbit-- therefore landed on land.

For Oriom, the factors governing landing mode choice are basically reusability and recovery. If a capsule is to be used in more than one mission, coming down somewhere in the deserts of the western United States might be preferable. If reuse is not critical, splashing down off the coast of California might be best, because we know how to recover capsules at sea. In either case, precision landing will be critical. Aiming for the Utah desert and hitting downtown Salt Lake City would be disastrous. Missing an ocean landing area by tens of miles would also endanger the astronauts and their ship. Such misses occassionally occurred in the Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, and Soyuz program.

Deadline for the decision is next September, when the overall design of Orion is to be finalized.