Abstract
The first phase of a flight into space is potentially the most dangerous, from the point of view of the crew onboard. Sitting atop a fully fuelled launch vehicle on the pad or in the early stages of a flight, the chances of anything going wrong (and the magnitude of the disaster, should that happen) are probably at their greatest here, given the complexity of the vehicle, the dynamics of the flight and variations in atmospheric conditions. Getting off the Earth may be one of the most thrilling rides of your life, but it carries the greatest risk of being your last. Protecting and recovering the crew from catastrophic and fatal incidents at launch has been a challenge for spacecraft designers since humans first ventured into space.
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Reference
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© 2009 Praxis Publishing Ltd, Chichester, UK
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(2009). Pad escape. In: Space Rescue. Springer Praxis Books. Praxis. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-73996-0_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-73996-0_4
Publisher Name: Praxis
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