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I read that at least one shuttle commander thought the ejector seats would've been useless anyway b/c if you used them while the solid rocket boosters were stil
by 00N8 7y ago
I read that at least one shuttle commander thought the ejector seats would've been useless anyway b/c if you used them while the solid rocket boosters were still running you'd get burned up & lose your parachutes from the SRB exhaust - and your altitude & velocity would be too high to eject by the time you'd be safe from the SRBs
- catalogia 7y agoThey were zero-zero seats (capable of ejecting at zero airspeed/altitude, aka on the ground), so they conceivably would have been useful during some of the return trip, including sitting on the runway after landing. Understandably that was probably not the part of the flight the astronauts were most worried about though.