Yes! I 've thought along those lines, too.
The escape-tower and it's solid-rockets
adds unwelcome mass to the payload
[the primary payload of course being the manned space-capsule].
For instance, the escape-tower rockets
on the Mercury capsules could theoretically have provided ADDITIONAL DeltaV close to 200meters/second [450mph].
The G-force would have been unpleasant
[plus 10 G's], but it could have boosted
a suborbital manned Mercury to a peak altitude of about 172 miles up.
The crude math, here.
V^2 = 2G[deltaH]Sin60
V = [1900m/s + 200m/s]
V^2 = 4,410,000m^2/s^2
2G = 19.6m/s^2
Sin60 = 0.866
DeltaH = [roughly]225,000 meters.
Actual peak altitude would then be:
=225km(0.866)+ 80km[burnout altitude]
=275km [172 miles up]
cheers.
Jacob
Space/Science » in reply to Re: LES
That's an interesting thought, gbaikie.