I got to thinking about this tale again,
"You're lucky the room you were in was empty due to Dr. Lyon getting a stomach bug at the last minute."
Even more important then the space, was the fuel & mass calculations.
Assume Lois had hid somewhere but everyone was aboard, her added mass could cause a crash.
Imagine that Superman's first
Public act was saving and boosting into orbit the launch vehicle which had started falling due to
unknown causes.
