Rocketeer

You need to basically transport a 3 tank rocket into orbit and back down. From the ground, 3 tanks are enough to achieve orbit and return under a powered landing.

You can have a SRB stage firing radially from just one engine, giving asymmetric thrust and tilting the rocket. Or you can just carry an asymmetry in the rocket that makes it tilt slightly (but not too much). Though, the simplest possible orbiter is just a 3 tank rocket (no parachute or SAS). It will slowly tilt by itself and reach near horizontal velocity just about when it runs out of fuel.

Build the fastest possible rocket by having at most one stack of engines or tanks. You will have to extend your stages radially rather than vertically. You can add at most one LFE+ one LFT from the bottom of radially coupled SRBs. You can extend the rocket by sticking more SRBs to the new LFTs or radially to existing SRBs. Only stock parts are allowed for either version 0.8.5 or 0.9 experimental. Example: http://i.imgur.com/m00qC.png

Try to get orbit or fastest possible with a rocket that has no modules directly attached to the bottom of the capsule. Hint: you can stick radial couplers to SAS

Can you do this: 1. Launch on an escape trajectory 2. Turn back and burn into a second escape trajectory grazing Kearth's atmosphere 3. Use atmospheric drag to slow down the craft down to orbital velocity 4. Do a burn at apogee to stabilize the orbit or... 3. Use Kearth's atmosphere repeatedly aerobraking in order to reach orbital velocity from an initial escape trajectory (using minimal rocket thrust) or... Go into a high and eccentric elliptical orbit that grazes Kearth's atmosphere and aerobrake without engine thrust in order to circularize the trajectory around the planet (with just one thrust at the end perhaps).