The nasa blog on the final day said. “At 5,400 feet, Orion’s drogue parachutes were cut and the three main parachutes deployed, reducing velocity to less than 200 feet per second and guiding Orion on its final descent and splashdown.”
Which is to say “less than” roughly 60 meters per second. Somewhere else on the site I couldn’t find again they mentioned it being a touch down speed of 20 miles per hour, which is a fair bit slower at about 9 meters a second, but that’s still a car crash if you’re hitting a solid surface.
The point remains. Getting a large object like that down to a soft, non injurious, speed is not practical with just a parachute. Other techniques must be employed.
14th_cylon@lemmy.zip 3 hours ago
and except for the nonsensical idea that water is soft and bouncy and it is more comfortable to land into it… it is not.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEmss85gCbs