Russian capsules launch from the Kazack steppe. In the event of a launch abort, like there was in October 2018, you need to have a capsule that can land on land.

American capsules launch from Florida and fly over the ocean. In the event of an abort, they need to be able to land at sea.

They both took their abort modes and just made it the standard way to land after a mission.

There are so many things that you can land on land that will absolutely ruin your day. A large boulder, a large tree, a cliffside, a building, something flammable, near an angry hungry bear... Astronauts coming back to Earth after spending a significant amount of time in microgravity are also mostly helpless until they adapt to Earth's gravity again. The open sea is seen as safer in the American school of thought.

I imagine a lot of factors... but yeah that's a big one, no mountains, no buildings, no population centers, you can miss by 100 miles and just add some time to the recovery.

The capsules can do a water splashdown with parachutes alone.

The capsules that land on land all seem to have some additional system to slow down in addition to the parachute. Boeing Starliner has airbags that deploy around and below the heat shield. Soyuz has a braking rocket system that fires immediately before impact.

So, the issue does come down to the chutes. A chute capable of reducing decent speed to 10m/s is significantly larger than one capable of getting the speed to 60 m/s. Impractically large on a weight constrained thing like a space capsule.

The Soyuz uses a small set of retro rockets to reduce speed in the last few seconds before touch down, and even then it’s like being in a car crash.

On the Vostok capsules the astronauts didn’t even land with the capsules, they just bailed out and parachuted down.

Landing in the ocean is significantly more comfortable and less complicated.

Starliner also lands on land, and I believe Dragon has that option or at least was gong to at some point in its design.

I was about to say, what is even her point?

She's stupid, so don't worry about it. Or she's saying 'pay attention' as she's well versed in people drifting off when she speaks.

A lot of conspiracy narrative is just pointing out things that seem odd and that's enough evidence, you don't need a conclusion

Probably something along the lines of how the reptilians live in underwatwr cities thus landing in the ocean makes it easier for them to swap out astronauts.

Yeah. I’m ready for the wacked-out conspiracy shit.

Because it allows conspiracy theorists maximum flexibility to wrap whatever pseudoscience into whatever objections they get as replies.

Conspiracy theorists on the far fringe are all about knowing more than you, being smarter than you for noticing the obvious when you can't.

Them saying "pay attention" doesn't mean "there's something here that you are missing". It means "I am projecting that I know more than you". This is why they don't elaborate.

It's 'think for your self'. Its a command, an open ended command.

Which they say with authority, because they fashion themselves as thought leaders (cough cult leaders cough) and have literally delusional levels of self confidence and ego.

Ignoring that the Soyuz is a more traditional capsule that does land on land, with timed rockets to slow their descent just before impact.

Let’s just say landing on water is better, based on the medical injuries different astronauts have suffered riding home on the Soyuz. Several American astronauts have experienced bruising and joint/back pain from the hard “bone-jarring” landing.

Space deniers are the bottom of the fucking barrel as far as I'm concerned. I don't know what it is about them, or how they got so fucking stupid, but there appears to be no limit to their ignorance.

I think the money required to "just build a recovery ship" is way too high to justify it as an alternative to methods that already work.

Right!?

It's also not safe to consume - drink too much or too fast and you can drown or die of hyponatremia.

It's obviously because they are all a bunch of woke snowflakes who want to make us all gay! Wake up, sheeple!