Frankly, I just press quickload. However I did experiment a bit with putting a few seperatrons on the command pod and disabling all engines in the abort action group. Never incorporated anything standard into my designs. In my current save I have a sort of "whatever you need, stick it on the end over there"-kind ragtag spacestation. My minmus Kethane mining operation was manned from day 1 on this save, but I only rarely thought about having any kind of return vehicle for them. Then I decided to man the spacestation. As I thought about how insanely claustrophobic and terrifying it must be to be stuck on a hunk of metal and rocketfuel with no way off, I decided to make a 1-way return vessel. I slapped together a Mk2 pod with two hitchhiker modules, some fuel and a couple of radial chutes. As I docked it, it briefly struck my mind that perhaps I should have tested it for re-entry to make sure it's not a massive deathtrap. Time will tell.