After the high altitude and speed tests, Wernher Von Kerman had confidence enough to present his latest idea. A space going rocket! As the latest Falcon missions showed wings don't work after reaching a particular height, his thought was that a rocket relied only on sheer raw engine-power get us all the way up in space, just the cup of tea of Yuri.
As rockets are generally just one large fuel tank with a nozzle, the potential explosive danger was significant. Some sort of escape method was necessary. The idea was to strap some boosters to the main cockpit and propel the cockpit away in case of an explosion.
To test this idea a special contraption was build, a solid rocket booster with on top the newly designed cockpit. Yuri was called to test the escape method. After countdown the solid rocket was ignited launching the contraption upward with 4g.
The whole sequence of abort was automated and at a height of just 3km the abort sequence was started, decoupling and launching the cockpit of the main rocket.
After apoapsis the drogue and main chute where automatically deployed. Yuri enjoyed the ride and the high G's but was disappointment that the whole system was automated and he could not perform his "Barrel Roll Take Off Deluxe".
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