[SunkenCiv]

They weren’t wasted payloads except in retrospect. They were a safety feature. The Apollo escape rockets were blown away after first staging. Not sure Mercury had ‘em, pretty sure the first two Mercury launches didn’t have ‘em.

[SampleMan]

They weren’t wasted payloads except in retrospect.

My point was that it would have been a waste of payload capability to take it into orbit, as after a certain point of the launch it would no longer serve a purpose.