Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!seismo!hao!hplabs!sri-unix!TAW@S1-A From: TAW%S1-A@sri-unix.UUCP Newsgroups: net.space Subject: none Message-ID: <2678@sri-arpa.UUCP> Date: Thu, 30-Jun-83 13:45:00 EDT Article-I.D.: sri-arpa.2678 Posted: Thu Jun 30 13:45:00 1983 Date-Received: Sun, 3-Jul-83 17:18:23 EDT Lines: 32 From: Tom WadlowDate: 21 Jun 83 4:05:49-PDT (Tue) From: harpo!floyd!vax135!cornell!uw-beaver!tektronix !ucbcad!ucbesvax.turner @ Ucb-Vax When you think of how the Russians have been doing soft ground- landings almost from the start, and how "splash-down" was SOP for the U.S. until the shuttle, one wonders whether the Navy didn't have some- thing to do with the American Way of Re-entry. Pomp and Circumstance for an event of indefinite location is a little easier to arrange on a movable surface like an aircraft carrier. Those Siberian Plump-Downs must be rather dismal affairs by comparison. I believe that the ''official'' reason for wet landings is a matter of both weight and safety. Why carry lots of shock absorbers into space when you've got a couple of nice cushy oceans right nearby. And the sudden stop at the end of a ground landing (even if the chutes *don't* fail) is nobody's idea of fun. As for the Russian Plump-Downs, for quite some time the Russian cosmonauts ejected from their Vostoks and landed separately, for exactly the same reasons of safety. This practice ended shortly before the flight of Valentina Tereshkova, I believe. (Side-note: Tereshkova was selected mostly on the basis of her looks, since she was flown primarily for publicity value. Since nobody wanted to take chances she was kept heavily sedated for the duration of the flight. During the landing, the sedative wore off, and when the spacecraft was found by the locals, they found the Heroine of the State outside the Voshkod, puking her guts out in a reaction to the drugs. So despite what the popular press has been saying, the first *qualified* woman to go into space was Svetlana Savitskaya, last year.) --Tom