Sattorin

Coming in late, but just did this one for fun anyway: 2-Kerbal SSTO to Duna and back with liquid fuel only.

It is insanely frustrating that my tourist options are: 1 guy wants a suborbital flight on Kerbin 2 girls want to orbit Kerbin 4 tourists want to land on Pol, suborbital flight on Laythe, fly by Duna and suborbital flight over the Sun. Come on! Give me a Mun tourist that I can try to SSTO up and back!

Can confirm, did boom.

No... but hard mode should have some penalty for declining contracts.

So much yes, OP. It's an easy source of science, but it's even more tedious than biome-hopping. After collecting science from 3 biomes on the Mun, I hauled it back up to the orbital MPL... I've now spent over 9 years in-game diligently combing through data, and I've only used around half the available data. It wouldn't be so bad if you could just load up everything you have at the same time and automatically get science as a result, but damn... all this micro-management and time warping is ridiculous. It's especially ridiculous since it's only science from 3 Mun biomes and we're scanning the data for decades!

I first heard of KSP when Markiplier picked it up.

The missions I've seen seem a LOT smaller (and easier) than pre-1.0 Also, the large aircraft landing gear (as seen above) are MUCH better suited to Eve landings than the puny lander legs we used to use.

That is one [very attractive] simple ship. I've always liked making my big interplanetary ships into space trains. Dropping tanks off the back feels somehow more satisfying than radial decoupling.

The best part of KSP is that you can play it however you want. The second best part is the large number of opportunities to not be sensible I don't think anyone builds long-range SSTOs because they're logical, but because they're an interesting challenge. Pushing real physics to its limit is essential in exploring space in the real world. The way I play KSP is to push the game's physics to its limit! EDIT: And really, there are only small differences between a cargo SSTO and a distance SSTO. I'm pretty sure I can haul a 33%+ payload fraction to orbit with my 4,200dV-in-orbit design by switching out the nuke and replacing a bunch of fuel with cargo.

Thanks! It only barely made orbit, but I could probably replace the nuke with a 909 and have a very solid cargo hauler. What engine config are you using?

Well, it ain't small!

It definitely is! I just got a medium-size SSTO into LKO with 4,200 dV available. Going to fly it some place and post the pics after work!

You've given me quite a bit of inspiration with that plane! Gorgeous!

- - - Updated - - - I did! And whether it should be doable or not, I believe it can be done. I also think this aero model will allow for a SSTO planet-hopping ISRU craft that has a more manageable part count than my design. EDIT: Well doing what's fun for you is definitely what counts I think I'd really enjoy setting up a series of ISRU outposts such that a SSTO to Laythe could easily refuel and return, though I also enjoy the engineering challenge of dragging every last drop of dV out of a single-stage craft.

I'm reasonably certain we'll see a traditional SSTO Laythe with return soon. It's going to be like the 3 minute mile, once someone proves it can be done, tons of people will be pulling it off.