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* Limited ejection envelope. Ejection seats only work up to about {{convert|3400|mph|kn kph}} and {{convert|130,000|ft|m}}. That constituted a very limited portion of the shuttle's operating envelope, about the first 100 seconds of the 510 seconds powered ascent.
* No help during a ''Columbia''-type [[Atmospheric reentry|reentry]] accident. Ejecting during an atmospheric reentry accident would have been fatal because of the high temperatures and wind blast at high Mach speeds.
* Astronauts were skeptical of the ejection seats' usefulness. [[STS-1]] pilot [[Robert Crippen]] stated:{{quote|...in truth, if you had to use them while the solids were there, I don’t believe you would [survive]—if you popped out and then went down through the fire trail that’s behind the solids, that you would have ever survived, or if you did, you wouldn't have a parachute, because it would have been burned up in the process. But by the time the solids had burned out, you were up to too high an altitude to use it. ... So I personally didn't feel that the ejection seats were really going to help us out if we really ran into a contingency.<ref name="numbering-crippenoh">
▲{{quote|...in truth, if you had to use them while the solids were there, I don’t believe you would [survive]—if you popped out and then went down through the fire trail that’s behind the solids, that you would have ever survived, or if you did, you wouldn't have a parachute, because it would have been burned up in the process. But by the time the solids had burned out, you were up to too high an altitude to use it. ... So I personally didn't feel that the ejection seats were really going to help us out if we really ran into a contingency.<ref name="numbering-crippenoh">"[http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/history/oral_histories/CrippenRL/CrippenRL_5-26-06.pdf Robert L. Crippen]", NASA Johnson Space Center Oral History Project, 26 May 2006.</ref>}}
The Soviet shuttle ''[[Buran (spacecraft)|Buran]]'' was planned to be fitted with the crew emergency escape system, which would have included [[K-36RB]] (K-36M-11F35) seats and the [[Strizh]] full-pressure suit, qualified for altitudes up to 30,000 m and speeds up to Mach three.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.zvezda-npp.ru/english/05.htm|title=Emergency escape systems of RD&PE Zvezda|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130115034951/http://www.zvezda-npp.ru/english/05.htm|archive-date=2013-01-15}}</ref> Buran flew only once in fully automated mode without a crew, thus the seats were never installed and were never tested in real human space flight.
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