hurdurdur

Decided to make a space ship, word for word. Nukes are efficient enough to take this bad girl to mun. A few more screenshots at https://imgur.com/a/CcIzlbc

So i doodled around with low tech ssto-s and the inefficiency at low tech just ate my heart out. So i made this, hope it inspires someone

So, i wanted to launch stuff into space but not use the mk2 or mk3 cargo bays. Also only run on only liquid fuel alone, panthers and nukes. How shall i do it ? With this lovely twin-fuselage monster. The rest of the gallery visible on imgur: https://imgur.com/a/efCeD Now thinking of it i would change the design a little bit for stability, but overall the design was a success. COM doesn't almost move at all, nukes activated after 6km altitude to get the maximum amount of speed available (since it actually doesn't have all that much thrust after panthers go out). Upon landing you want probably to run the nukes after atmo entry one more time to regenerate some electricity, otherwise control is hard to maintain. Landing was surprisingly easy, i intentionally put it down in a slightly hilly place to test the ruggedness.

Here is my latest low tech SSTO with juno jet engines and a swivel rocket engine. Can carry a pilot into the orbit, that pretty much it. Launch profile was sea level until it hit 200m/s, then nose up to 20 degrees, running on jets until speed fell to 180m/s (around 6km or so) then engaging the swivel and up to the orbit in pretty standard fashion, lowering the nose past 25km altitude gradually. Orbit was around 72x71km. Full gallery on imgur: https://imgur.com/a/O1PtJ

A friend asked me how soon can you make an easy to fly ssto. So today's blind attempt - as soon as you have panthers and terriers. "The whole gallery" at https://imgur.com/a/K1ZAD The gimbal is disabled on the panthers since the plane needs no help turning. Wet mode from launch, engaging terriers at around 14km when the panthers start to bleed speed instead of adding, maintained 20 degree ascent up to 32km , then gradually brought the nose down. Nose gets a little heavy once you are up in space, pump all the fuel to the rearmost tanks when deorbiting.

So my 160 science space shuttle has been waiting a long time to get on video, now it is. Nice little symmetrical space shuttle, not like the weird megatankered ones that NASA built.

Here's one more tiny guy, powered by a juno only.

And who needs cargobays if you can just attach the payload to your tail. 4x panther, 2x swivel. Taking little probes to orbit no problemo Attached the whole gallery here:

And here is one more for the single panther ssto idea with 2 sparks on the side : Had to play around with the balance a bit before it got stable enough to make flight. Flying straight at sea level to over 400m/s, then nose up to 35 degrees and aiming for the skies, at 7-8km into ascent engaging the sparks (in order not to run out of speed too early), continue keeping the apoapsis at 35s or further ahead. If it's nearing you go nose up, if it's moving too far bring the nose down once it's at 72km or so you should be going around 2000m/s already and just need a little push (8 seconds at apoapsis for me) to get the periapsis over 70km as well. Before landing get all the fuel into the back so you could be comfortably unstable in the atmosphere and once you have tumbled yourself around 20km bring the fuel back to the front to restore balance. Without this overheating is quite likely.

single panther, this

Challenged myself once more on terrier + panthers ... yes it worked and the flight pattern wasn't ideal either. Pitched up very sharply at the end of jets to get more time for the terrier to burn on it's low but efficient thrust.

Built a replica of SubSonex tiny jet plane.

Had to refuel my science station so i built the thing on the left here from the attached docking port

Here is my latest pretty boy, going up-up-up in one launch Features a bunch of docking ports, different kind of engines for maneuvers, plenty of space for kerbals and science. Nukes give it so much delta-v it should be able to go pretty much anywhere once refuelled. Also carries extra fuel for different kind of probes that may use this as a tanker.

Well here it goes, my totally original idea that the united states never tried, launch a space vehicle off from a plane like structure in the air! Actually makes a lot of sense since jets are supereffective but dragging them and wings to space is ridiculous, only the rocket parts need to go up there. Here's the posing on the runway: And here is the rest of it on imgur along with the prototype that i built at first. Although kerbal has the "feature" that multiple objects within atmosphere can not be tracked, the plane part is actually flying happily on it's own since it's separated and in theory can return to ksp. I wish i could split the flight there at separation, land the plane part back and then resume with the rocket flight. Rest of the gallery on imgur: Ps kerbal developers - come on, make this kind of flight separation possible, only the game engine is keeping me from doing the separate orbit and return flight without a quicksave-resume

This bird is dead easy to fly (initial takeoff to 10km can be done at 50 degree angle, in orbit there is still lots of fuel left, big wing area makes aerobraking easy), seats 5. Pretty good for taking 5 kerbals to space stations etc.

One more low tech ssto, this time shuttle style (but without throwing off parts) with space for 3 kerbals. All you need is reliant and terrier engines and some fancy fuel tanks (and wings). No jet engines involved at all. Lands in water since low tech has pitiful wheels. The 90x90 orbit in the gallery was achieved with the following flight profile: take off with reliants, full throttle, start gravity turn at 50-60 m/s , at around 190m/s throttle down until past 9500m , now the gravity turn should have you at 45 degrees already, full throttle, activate the terrier as well, continue the gravity turn normally. Once the apoapsis is above 65km turn off the reliants (their isp is horrible compared to terrier) (and in my case - forget yourself to accelerate to the 90km apsis, stop the burn , add orbiting nodes, do the orbit burn and still have fuel left for the deorbit). Picture after the landing : And here is the whole gallery on imgur:

Something from the boring and practical crowd. An mk2 lifter with no kerbals endangered. Avoiding cockpits intentionally and also sort of out of need, i am running out of kerbals in the ksc, too many of them have flown off to explore Eve and Minmus. Rest of the pics of the first flight test on imgur:

For a while i wondered if aerospikes are good enough on their to make a space plane... In this configuration it certainly is: The flat profile and wings make aerobraking back a breeze, can easily do from 200x75 orbit landings without even showing any overheat signs. On takeoff the throttle has to be let back a lot since there is no point to burn fuel for speed at lower altitudes, over 2.5km the aerospikes go over 300isp and just keeps on getting better from there, there's plenty of fuel for maneuvering once you reach orbit. In the storage are at the nose i hid batteries, backup control unit and a small reaction wheel, plus solar batteries to charge up electricity on orbit if necessary. As seen from the picture this is robust enough to even land on fields when coming back down. Can briefly spin out of control when doing a rapid aerobrake but mass balance is just right so you regain control with ease. Might be a useful design for planets without oxygen but having a thick enough atmosphere. Playing with fuel mass may even make it possible to land this guy reverse on Duna ?

50% trolling , 50% on the money - ssto with 4 parts: Parachute makes landing easier even after wasting a lot of fuel to get up there (due to bad flying).

Here is my nuclear pusher called ElleVator. Klaw for dragging things, big docking port for pushing big things. Screenshots from Ike orbit, had to drop a drilling station there. A very stable flier, the dragging works very well for things with bad center of mass, nukes spread apart so don't burn my cargo, can land on fuel drills with the klaw if needs to fuel up.

My attempt to build a biplane spaceplane with a rover seat, like a grandfather would have had it. Full gallery here: http://imgur.com/a/SUjOH

Created something with junos that makes mach 2 and carries 2. And once again - lands in water because i throw away the wheels after takeoff. Flies very well. And fast.

Made a video of a crewed flight as well.

Give it a few shots, it's surprisingly easy (and since the landing strip is super wide it's harder to miss). Also if you land in water just in front of ksp then in career mode the credit penalty isn't huge either.