Re: Why wasn't escape tower used on Gemini?

In article <bv2jm21as92f4heq0qcdvqkk3ks1sbbgl7@xxxxxxx>,
Dale <drc@xxxxxx> wrote:
...by the time the escape tower
was jettisoned from both Mercury and Apollo, the survival prospects for
guys instead being shot out from the capsule on ejection seats must have
been pretty grim. Was the escape envelope dangerously limited on ascent
during the Gemini missions, or could the capsule/adapter module fill the gap
and safely separate in the even of a late ascent problem?

They'd wanted full-envelope ejection, but eventually had to concede that
for abort at high speed and high altitude, it would be necessary to ride
it out in the capsule, at least until after reentry. Aircraft often have
similar limitations: even high-performance fighters don't really have
full-envelope ejection, at least not if you want a good chance of
surviving it, and the X-15's ejection envelope was quite a bit smaller
than its flight envelope.
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