mystifeid

To claim the last two endorsements - (Is there an endorsement for having all endorsements?) - here is SRB Cargo taking 7 Kerbals and a relay sat into orbit before landing and parking in front of the SPH. Cost without the sat is 32120.

And I got an atom of Organesson !!

Awesome. I'm about to get busy for a while and I'm pretty SSTO'd out anyway but maybe @Klapauciuscan rustle you up some competition. I pity them.

I adjusted the COL so that when the Kickback flamed out, it exactly lined up with the COM so that SAS wasn't creating drag with pitch trim during the fastest part of the climb and the coast to the Shrimp burn. Or that was the theory. Ascent profile: Initial climb at about 28° with SAS stability hold then switch to prograde hold at 6800m. The Kickback puts the Ap at about 55km and the Pe at about -300km. Coast to around 11km below the Ap (variable depending on Ap) then burn the Shrimps which puts the Ap above 70km and the Pe to around -90km. Around 400m below the Ap use the Mites. Deorbit with Sepratrons. The standard canards were giving me liftoff from the runway at 150m/s. Mass on launch was 27.96 tons. Most importantly, I set the thrust limiter on the Kickback to 67%. (The Pollux in the Swallows had the thrust limiter set to 50%) Mainly I experimented with initial climb angle, prograde hold altitude and the thrust limiter. I kept getting 70/55 so I knew it was probably possible. If the Kickback didn't get the Pe to -310km or better, I knew I was doomed to another failure. I still have the Mk1 monopropellant. Maybe if I ditch that - I think it weighs 40kg (and costs 12) - I can add another couple of Sepratrons and taxi under that R&D bridge! Also it may turn out to be possible to remove fuel from one or more of those rockets for an even cheaper craft. You must have come in pretty fast from an 800km AP and that's a big ship to be landing on bumpy ground, at night.

Well, that was the goal. Finally, finally worked out how to put a Kickback into orbit. After so many attempts it feels strange now to be able to do it every time. The "Shrike" has a launch cost of 9600 and uses 2876 units of solid fuel at a cost of 1726. By comparison the Swallow Mk2 uses 4800 units of fuel at a cost of 2940. With a recovered cost of 7874, Shrike is the first submission to also qualify as an entry in Orbit Boot Camp. Seen here launching into orbit from KSC and nervously landing back on the runway.

Threw down the gauntlet there. Swallow Mk2 with a cost of 13241 launches into orbit from and lands, sort of, at KSC.

The Swallow (still 16205) has three flights to the Woomerang area. The first merely confirms the existence of the launch pad - it is impossible to see from the air - and it's general location. After the second flight touches down and is bumping over the ground, the tower is seen through the trees and Swallow ends up losing all energy right beside the pad. The ramp direction is noted and the surrounding landscape memorized. The third flight ... well, third time's the charm.

It was different. I think I exploded Jeb about a thousand times trying to do high speed course adjustments on approach before I worked out that the only safe way was to set up a deorbit that was way short and then extend my glide.

Swallow (still 16205) launches into polar orbit from and lands back on the Dessert Runway. For some reason I found this one to be very difficult. It's hard to see the runway from any great distance and landing on it at night was a nightmare. Probably for those with something like Trajectories mod this would be a lot easier. PS. The Swift Mk2 left parked under the R&D bridge cost 24570.

Parked at the SPH. Check. Parked under the R&D bridge. Check. This time the "Swallow" (cost 16205) takes off and lands at the Island Runway and parks in a hangar.

I was going to say, is there anywhere else you'd like it parked? OMG, the Woomerang launch pad?? Yeah, some of these are going to take a while and probably I'll need a new design. In the meantime here is Swift Mk2 parking it under the R&D bridge. I had to move the rear wheels in toward the center just so's I could stay off the blasted grass. I hope you realize what an inconvenience that was. Needed one more improvement too...

You can see the cost in the SPH at the start of the video.

Thank you for your kind words but I'm afraid @chargan has the cheapest craft at 20675. That u-turn and taxi appear to be impossible but pausing the video and squinting real hard at a few frames makes it look legit.

Tough assignment. Kept nearly making orbit and thinking maybe a couple more rockets when really what I should have been doing is trying with less. The "Swift" won't win any prizes for low cost ( 24270) or looks but it does the job. The video below is single take - there was no quicksaving/quickloading - and shows the third consecutive time the Swift made orbit. (The first two times had much higher Ap's). It was also the first time I was able to descend near KSC. Pretty good landing then hit the brakes too hard and I was cursing as I watched the ship spin around. But then realized I was still rolling - backwards - but still rolling. Pulled off the strip and parked it in front of the SPH.

The plan for the rocket might or might not have been taken from a photograph of a sketch of a box of crayons but that's not important right now. Right now, the team here wants to know the meaning of this word "excess".

It keeps itself safe. The game keeps multiple rolling backups of the save game file - persistent.sfs - even if you have selected the no revert option, probably to provide some insulation from the effects of things like bsod's, game crashes, krakens and other bugs. Using them is not quite as easy or tempting as hitting F5/F9. I have a no revert career and so far I've killed four Kerbals. And they're still dead. But in the (distant) past I remember - for example - switching to perfectly good ships in interplanetary space only to find pieces of the ship drifting along. What would you do with your no revert game then?

Tried looking in ...\Kerbal Space Program\saves\[career name]\Backup ?

The team behind the construction of the Safety Orange Rescue were particularly keen to see some purchase orders disappear...they burned those documents with 8km/s to spare.

It's been a while ... Name: mystifeid Date: 5/3/20 Destination: Mohole Type of Submission: Images + Video Landing in the Mohole

Wow, TOTM @Chequers!! Congratulations. Yeah, not so much. If you can recover 5k you can start with 10k but let's go with a launchpad cost of less than 5k. Without caring much about the ascent profile, a Terrier and two Thumpers easily makes it to a 83Mm/83Mm orbit with more than enough fuel to deorbit. Pretty sure I didn't need the heat shield either.

I think you might be better off refueling on Minmus then doing an Oberth dive back down around Kerbin.

The first requirement is not checked off - ie the station must be new, have a docking port, an antenna and can generate power. It looks like you have bulk solar panels and what looks like a few communotron 16 antennae but it's hard to identify docking ports in the image. One ship is clearly docked using a claw. Also, did you dock older parts to the station before establishing orbit?

I think that even at the best, lowest launchpad dV is a very contrived challenge and at the worst it looks like it becomes meaningless. @Chequerscan take solace though in having found pretty hard limits for lowest launch cost and lowest overall cost.

I'd agree that it's time to take the Gold Florettes, give them Kerbol escape velocity and say bye bye. Not sure what to replace them with though.

Using @CBase's trick, the dV Liar makes orbit with a launchpad dV of 225m/s. You'd have to say it's possible to keep refining this trick until you have only 1 or 2 m/s dV showing on the launchpad - just enough to deorbit.