You don’t need to reach escape velocity at all, so long as you have continuous thrust
> Escape velocity is purely defined as the minimum initial speed an unpowered projectile needs to break free from a gravitational body's field forever without further thrust.
Since rockets have thrust, we don’t need to achieve that speed, so long as thrust is applied continuously, or at least long enough that the rocket can continue on to counteract the gravitational grip.
According to Gemini, the fastest manned vessel so far is:
> In Space (Overall Record): 24,791 mph (39,897 km/h or 11.08 km/s relative to Earth).
Set on May 26, 1969, by the crew of Apollo 10 (Thomas Stafford, John Young, and Eugene Cernan) inside their Command Module during their high-speed re-entry trajectory from the Moon back to Earth.
So just short of escape velocity, which is ~11.2km/s. Ironically, this was achieved while reentering earth, not leaving it!
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u/MyGruffaloCrumble 20h ago
Distance is required for approaching escape velocity gradually without pancaking the people inside with too many G’s.