Spaceflight is hard, and dangerous. From the beginnings of crewed spaceflight in the early 1960s, ejection seats and launch escape rockets were designed to carry astronauts and cosmonauts away from the fireball of an exploding booster. Launch escape rockets can be carried on top of the spacecraft and lift it off tractor-style or be mounted under the capsule and push it free of the upper stages. Ejection seats have fallen out of favour after the second Space Shuttle flight, but both tractor and pusher type launch escape rockets are human rated today. Blue Origin and SpaceX use the pusher type, while NASA prefers the traditional tractor type. Which is better? Want to watch this podcast as a video? This Week in Engineering is available on engineering.com TV along with all of our other shows such as End of the Line, Designing the Future, and, Manufacturing the Future.