Fun fact: the Shuttle was intended to have ejection capabilities, they were removed by the request of the Department of Defense. They provided extra funding for the Shuttle on the stipulation that it reach very specific orbits including a polar orbit that was only achievable by an extreme weight reduction. In fact later Shuttles also had to be modified to even make it to the ISS with a valuable amount of cargo. Columbia, the first Shuttle to fly to space, was always too heavy to make it to the ISS. The reason this happened is the president at the time, Jimmy Carter if I remember correctly, made some interesting and specific threats about their own capabilities to the Russians. These modifications were to make good on those threats.
Fun fact: the Shuttle was intended to have ejection capabilities, they were removed by the request of the Department of Defense. They provided extra funding for the Shuttle on the stipulation that it reach very specific orbits including a polar orbit that was only achievable by an extreme weight reduction. In fact later Shuttles also had to be modified to even make it to the ISS with a valuable amount of cargo. Columbia, the first Shuttle to fly to space, was always too heavy to make it to the ISS. The reason this happened is the president at the time, Jimmy Carter if I remember correctly, made some interesting and specific threats about their own capabilities to the Russians. These modifications were to make good on those threats.