[Riley]

<< Does anyone know if they give the astronauts parachutes?


They do, but a NASA interviewee said that they were too high to use the escape system.

[Hillarys Gate Cult]

The original shuttle design called for an escape capsule like an F-111 aircfaft has, but it was considered too costly and shelved. Until the Challeger disaster, they had no way of escape. They now put in a system where the astronauts could escape by parachute ( NASA tested it using a C-141), but the speed and altitude make that system most probably useless in this case.

[csvset]

I believe they said the operating range for the emergency egress system was somewhere around 20,000 feet.

God bless them all, they died in the line of duty.