The speed of the shuttle would be a lot higher than they used in the movie though.

You are absolutely correct, there should be no "slack work" or "corner cutting" that would put the mission in jeopardy. I also understand the crew minus the pilot is mostly civilian, and some of our brightest minds, however I am sure they prepare themselves mentally prior to launch for the what ifs. If given the option of a possible failure and not going to space, I am sure every one of them would have chosen space. Hopefully we will come to our senses and start pumping more money into R&D and the Space program, as ultimately these funds will create better jobs and increased funding for education.

I am surprised more people do not see the impracticality of spending millions/billions on an escape system that simply puts fears to rest, when in reality the chance of a successful usage is slim to none.

Now for the pole. That pole is for the survival of the crew more than the survival of an astronaut's chute caught on the tail-wing horizontal stabalizer. Failure to dislodge the caught jumber from the tail would cause the shuttle to become uncontrollable as the rear ailerons would not be able to function. Straight, level flight allowing the rest of the crew to jump would be lost. The complete crew would likely perish if the first jumper became impossibly entangled in the rear flight controls.

a) aborted the launch and decided to ditch in the Atlantic,

b) tried to slow the shuttle a hell of a lot by gliding it at a high angle of attack for a while, and

c) have some sort of emergency autopilot to hold the shuttle as close as possible to such an attitude so they can don their parachutes mid-flight and use this 'pole' mechanism to attempt an escape.

Ian writes 'give me a slim chance of survival over no chance any day' – I'd say this is not so much a slim chance of survival as a vanishingly small chance!

If the space shuttle were carrying a payload containing a dangerous substance (those used for fuel) at what cost would it be to allow that payload to disburse over Canada or a foreign nation versus terminating the mission over the ocean?

Why?

Now, even that assumes the shuttle is in straight and level flight, (and would not have, say, helped the Challenger crew, had they known what was coming) but it's a very simple means of insuring they don't strike the leading edge of the wing as they do so. Other approaches involved complicated ejection systems and pyrotechnics (explosive and/or rocket devices) that would always have been a source of accidental ignition…and also requiring a vehicle still under control and not accelerating.

All this is also because an orbiter is not expected to survive ditching in water, in a situation where no land mass is reachable.

This reminds me of a local (to me) DJ who was astounded that *springs* were used to eject satellite payloads from the shuttle orbiter. Or the matter of developing a pen that could deliver ink to its pall point in zero-g…while the Soviets/Russians used pencils.

If there's a simple solution to at least part of the problem exists, why not use it?