I’m surprised that the article didn’t mention one of the hazards of a land landing: wolves.
The cosmonauts carried a survival kit that includes a gun to help scare off wolves and tigers. The kit also has fishing line, a machete and other tools that might be needed while waiting for your country to retrieve you from a remote area. I’m pretty sure that Astronauts didn’t need such a kit.
Alexy Leonov and Pavel Belyayev in the Voskhod 2 mission found themselves about 250 miles away from the landing zone and in the dense forests of Upper Kama Upland. The temperature was 22 degrees below zero in Fahrenheit. They were surrounded by wolves who were scratching at their partially opened hatch.
They had to spend two days by their capsule before they could ski a few kilometers to a nearby rescue helicopter.
The US was playing catchup for a long time. Sputnik really put a scare into people. The US went into “Get into space quickly with a minimum of effort.” mode. Landing on water was quick and dirty compared to landing on land. Use the resources you have (e.g., a Navy) vs. designing, building, testing stuff you don’t have (retrorockets that would work after burning thru the atmosphere).
Weight was an issue. The US didn’t have as powerful rockets as the USSR. Anything to save weight was a plus. Another set of retro rockets added more weight.
Plus the Soviets could afford to lose people without suffering political consequences. The US had to take fewer risks.
Actually, the Gemini and Apollo astronauts did receive some wilderness survival training. IIRC, they walked and camped in the mountains of Arizona or some such for a few days, exactly in case they had to land far from civilization. Michael Collins included a photo from this training in his excellent book Carrying the Fire.
I can see Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and Jim McDivitt. Borman and McDivitt seem to have gone full Arab with the headdress.
The were made from parachutes by the way.
