IIRC they were concerned about having retractable legs beneath the heat shield so in terms of complexity the water landing is safer.

No, that’s not it. The Shuttle had them and the engineering is easy. NASA was wary of the safety of propulsive landings and the time/cost to approve them would have been too much.

I am curious about this as well. Was the propulsion the problem? Did they just want a water landing? Did they specifically want an ocean landing to increase the acceptable margin for error in the splash down location? Is there some specific property to the salt water like buoyancy that is important? Would a landing in fresh water like the Great Lakes (or Lake Victoria if they need something more equatorial) meet NASA's requirements and allow the capsule to be reusable?

> Would a landing in fresh water like the Great Lakes (or Lake Victoria if they need something more equatorial) meet NASA's requirements and allow the capsule to be reusable?

I'd guess that one of the big reasons they (and everyone else who does water landings) lands in the ocean, is that it is much more palatable to regulators to create an exclusion zone in the ocean, which people can easily route around.

Also, people live on the side of the lake, so there isn't much margin for error, which never warms the cockles of a regulator's heart.

I'd also wager that the concentration of vessels on the great lakes is significantly higher than 100 miles or so out into an ocean. Wouldn't want to land on a sailboat. Don't think that'd work out well for either end.

+1 for splashdown in the great lakes. Now let's throw in launch pad on the shore of lake superior for getting in polar orbits. ;-)

This is Space X.... let's go for a splash down in a water park in Wisconsin too!

Eventually, SpaceX will improve the accuracy so much that they will be able to get random celebrities to pay for having splashdowns in their private Beverly Hills swimming pools. :)