Hi Mike, I think it's purely that we had more unoccupied water and they had more occupied land. Our Mercury/Gemini/Apollo capsules all used ablating shields of glass--designed to burn away and carry the heat with it. I believe that's what Russian capsules still do. The shuttle tiles act more as insulators--if they burned away, you'd have to replace them after every flight. I had a chance to handle a piece of that material once--fascinating stuff. Other than the more permanent nature of the material, I don't know if it's any more effective than the ablating shields. Back before the Soviet Union broke up, in the days of Glasnost and Perestroika, we had a great exhibit of Soviet space technology in Boston. They had an actual Vostok, along with a number of pieces of gear that never flew--including the Soviet moon buggy. It was an amazing show, and I'd guess that collection has long since been broken up. There were even a few old cosmonauts wandering around the exhibit hall. Michael .................................. Mr. Bailey wrote... If I remember correctly, back in the 60's and 70's while U.S. manned spaceflights ended with a splash in the ocean, Soviet manned spaceflights landed on earth in Soviet territory. What were the technological differences between our parachute-and-heat shield-system, and the way the Soviets did it? Why did the two systems evolve differently--was it merely because the U.S. had more extensive freedom on the seas? Other than the fact that our space capsules "dropped" (?) through the atmosphere, and the space shuttle "glides"(?) down, and the shuttle's heat shield is made of tiles, how has our system evolved since the Apollo program? Mike Bailey _______________________________________________