Teutooni

So today I tested a rather minimalist all-liquid SSTO to see how much delta-v I can squeeze out. I used a 2 rapier 1 nuke setup with a plane that is essentially a V-shaped fuel tank. This thing can break mach 3 at sea level (and explode shortly afterwards ). The best I could do was a little over half fuel left in orbit, which engineer reports as 2.1km/s, although it had been acting up the entire flight showing NaN dv at times. I did the calculation myself and got around 2.65km/s using 15-tons weight in orbit and 10.7 tons empty. This is still short on anything more than a flyby on interplanetary destinations. I honestly don't know if interplanetary SSTO planes are possible anymore. Going any smaller than this would increase the relative mass of the nuke engine. I packed in as much fuel as TWR allowed. Granted I did not try 1 nuke 1 rapier setup due to thrust balancing issues. 1 rapier 2 nuke gets to orbit but had worse efficiency. My attempts at mid-sized SSTOs showed no better performance. Maybe huge SSTO's with a 30-40 rapiers and a few nukes could get more delta-v?

Thing with one time pads is if op used a truly random key the same length of the message, it would have been literally impossible to break. I'm talking about theoretically perfect security. You can try all possible keys and all you get is all possible messages and no way of knowing which is the original. To be fair he did give a hint regarding the key which was quite short and we knew the message was in english, should have been fairly easy to crack. Basically you'd have to either guess the key and know how to apply it to decpiher the message, or have some knowledge of attacking one-time pads with weak non-random keys.As for puzzles in games... I dunno, otp seems overkill. Better just obfuscate the message, like someone posted about geometric shapes and such. If you already have to piece together the key from hints it is imo unnecessary to have the additional step of applying it to the cipher. Just have the message itself splattered across the Kerbol system. If you want a universal number system, binary. It is the simplest one, all others are fairly arbitrary. There are cases for base 6 and 60 afaik due to being equally divisible by 2, 3 and 6 (and 4, 5, 10, 12, 15, 20, 30 in case of 60). Humans count in decimal because we have 10 fingers.

I visited Dres once back in 0.23.5. Kerbal alarm clock said there was a window so why not? Modified my Duna+Ike remote tech satellite mission (2 satellites + lander per body) by basically replacing duna part with more fuel. It was the sloppiest mission ever, didn't bother checking any delta-v budgets or anything. Probably why it almost failed. Had to transfer all fuel from one satellite and half the fuel of the lander to one satellite and ditch the other to squeeze more delta-v out. So managed to get the long range communications satellite in orbit, but the lander fell 30m/s short of making a controlled landing. Lost all solar panels with basically very little electricity left. It managed to transmit half a temperature scan before dying. The real question always was why would you visit Dres twice? And it seems with 1.0 we have a reason.

Halfway through reading this I was all giddy thinking you snatched one of the kerbals with the Klaw (not the lab) and deorbited with him hanging for dear life outside the safety of a heat shielded pod. Was slightly disappointed but t'was still awesome. Mine was Valentina managing to recover a mission with a really poor lander which was all aerodynamic and tall but fell over on ~7 degree inclined slope upon landing. She used the service bay doors to bump the vessel up while speeding 20m/s along the surface.

Awesome! I think that's half the appeal of the game - figuring out a solution when in a situation you did not plan for. The other half is designing missions that don't get you into such situations.

Ok here's one. Pure engines on the launchpad (104 of them). Temperature 16131.1 K. If I add any more engines I think my CPU will melt. I was thinking of going to kerbol for this, but decided to see how far pure engines can go for temperature. Does kerbol have an atmosphere (presumably not) and do parts start to heat up near it? Either way I doubt the thermal flux is enough anywhere to take the temperature much higher. One thing someone might want to try is SRBs if they produce more heat.

Back in 0.23.5 where I put most of my hours in KSP I had a huge save that was probably centuries old in kerbin time. So a lot of obsolete satellites, failed rocket parts, fairings etc flying around. One time when I was testing an SSTO and got to orbit, one of the structural wing panels on top of the plane suddenly exploded. I could only deduce it was struck by some small debris - the plane was not under any kind of stress or any other effect that could have destroyed the panel. Escape pods? No. But plenty of occasions when I should have used one! Incidentally the spaceplane I was testing when hit by debris was one of the few things I ever fitted with a re-entry capable escape pod for the pilot. Didn't need to use it that time though.

Kredits?

For me there are two huge hurdles now with 1.0.2 compared to 1.0. Transonic barrier was an issue in 1.0 when trying to optimize payload fraction (i.e. as few engines and fuel as possible, as much cargo as possible). I used an ascent profile that climbed to ~7-9km subsonic, went into a dive to push through to 450m/s. Now it's impossible, or at least much much more narrow. Dive doesn't really help because even 1km loss in altitude means absolutely massive increase in drag and will actually slow your plane down in a nosedive (which is absurdly unrealistic, dart shaped planes will not slow down in a full-thrust nosedive at 300m/s). With the mk3 hull I found I need around 1.5 TWR to be able to go supersonic in level flight. Another hurdle is related to the first. Because I need so many engines to do the same as in 1.0, they need to be packed tightly to reduce drag - so then they overheat. The one ascent profile I managed to achieve orbit involved climbing as hard as I can through 15-30km at the expense of speed just to get into thin enough air so my engines don't explode. This results in a horribly inefficient ascent needing to burn 90% of previous payload as propellant. Oh and CTDs are frequent in 1.0.2, gona try disabling the heat gauges if it helps. Frankly I had more fun trying to build an SSTO spaceplane in .90 with FAR, DRE, AJE and realistic solar system.

Short answer yes. I think someone made one with 100+ tons payload to LKO. My second attempt at 1.0 spaceplanes can bring at least 36 tons to LKO with 1km/s dv left after separation. It can haul lighter loads to munar orbit and return. If payload was used as propellant it might be in the SSTLaB territory, will have to check on that.

Some stability issues can be solved by dedicating control surfaces to one kind of movement. Tail fins yaw only, wingtips roll, big wing elevons/canards pitch, for example. Love how the plane looks though eddiew!

The biggest problem with small craft I found was heat management. See those massive fuel tanks in the front half of the large plane? Very good heat sinks. Small planes' noses/cockpits kept blowing up for me, even with fuel behind them. Large wings also tolerate heat very well, especially ones with fuel in them. Large planes benefit from relatively smaller surface section so less drag, relatively. Third, rapiers have enormous TWR at optimal operating range capable of lifting a lot if kept under those conditions. It is therefore effective to bring a lot of LFO+rockets, squeeze everything out of those rapiers at mach 2-4 and then burn the massive amount of fuel they are capable of lifting to 20km.

Thanks! They are precoolers and they provide additional air intake. And they don't blow up. First to go when overheating are the intakes in the front of the nacelles, then front winglets. After that it takes a while but sooner or later the struts will start to melt (at the time I was going 1600 m/s 18km), followed by the big wings shortly thereafter and the whole plane a fraction of a second later. This gave me an idea to replace all air intakes with precoolers to improve very high speed performance.

What started as a proof-of-concept plane for an SSTO with ISRU capability with the new 1.0 stock refinery and aerodynamics turned out to be a pretty solid SSTO design performance-wise. I present the Carina-Sagittarius heavy SSTO, inspired by the skylon spaceplane concept. It's a 135-ton spaceplane with one long mk3 cargobay and one short mk3 cargobay mounted upside down for fitting a drill inside. Payload fraction is at least 20%, which means one full orange fuel tank weighing 36 tons to 75kmx75km orbit (with almost 1km/s delta-v left after payload separation). Like skylon, it is unmanned. If you want crew, feel free to slap some command pods/passenger modules inside the cargobay. The upside down cargobay would be ideal for extensible ladders too. Dropbox link to craft file. Action groups as follows: AG1=toggle rapiers AG2=switch rapier mode AG3=toggle poodle The ascent profile is a little complicated. I divide it into 4 phases. Phase 1: takeoff on rapiers in airbreathing mode. Climb at 20 degrees to 5km. Phase 2: at 5 km start leveling out to gain speed. If carrying heavy payload turn poodle on. Goal is to hit 450-500m/s. Don't be afraid to lose a little altitude to gain speed if under heavy load. Phase 3: once rapiers kick into full gear at mach 2, start climbing again at 20 degrees. At 13-15km start leveling out a little again but this time do not lose altitude. Goal is to hit 1200m/s at 20km (1400m/s at 23km with light payload). Phase 4: above 19km turn on poodle and open action menu of the rapiers. Once the thrust of a single rapier falls below ~150kN, switch them to closed cycle and burn at 5-15 degrees till you hit target apoapsis. Circularize. With 4 airbrakes re-entry is a cakewalk. Just remember to pump some fuel to the nose to keep CoM in front of CoL. I found filling the second foremost tank (i.e. not the adapter) with whatever is left does the trick. If the plane spins to go tail first you need more fuel in front and if you get no control authority it's too nose-heavy. I did several test flights up to LKO, with the best figures being 1595 m/s delta-v left after circularizing 75km with the ISRU converter payload, way more than what is needed to land on minmus (mun would be tight). Around 600m/s left with full orange tank payload (36 tons) and 990 m/s after separation. Now that I think of it I should have also written down the delta-v if the fuel in the payload tank were to be used. Also yeah, SSTOs are still possible, still useful.

Well it's not a very refined design yet (threw it together in 30 mins). That was the profile I used on the first test flight (which succesfully ended up on the surface of minmus). It might be beneficial to turn on the poodle much earlier, as low as 7km to give the extra bit of thrust so the rapiers can be pushed to optimal operating range of mach 2-4 earlier. Should probably turn off the poodle once rapiers output over 200kN and turn back on when switching rapier modes. The purpose of the upload was not by any means to give the ultimate spaceplane, just an early proof of concept plane that shows beyond LKO performance is still very much possible. EDIT: I don't have hard numbers but it seems your suggestion is indeed an improvement. Updated the ascent profile. Also updated the design file with improvements to aerodynamics for easier landing. EDIT2: It seems there are rather complex ascent profiles that are close to optimal and don't use any rockets until 1300m/s and 21km altitude. Managed to get this thing up to 75x75 orbit with 1490m/s dv left. The problem is it's pushing the plane to the limits and I melted some control surfaces in the process.

For all those people having trouble building SSTOs I hope this design can give some useful insights into how to do it. It's an all-stock (I have not touched any mods yet in 1.0, even kerbal engineer) mk3 hull spaceplane with refining equipment as payload and enough delta-v to take off from KSC and land on minmus. It's very much a skylon inspired plane. Dropbox link for the craft file. Ascent profile is pretty much 20 degrees till ~5km, turn on poodle and start leveling out a little to build up speed. Once in speed hits 450m/s turn off poodle and start climbing again at 20 degrees. At 15-17km turn poodle back on, and switch rapier mode when their output drops below 170kN (20-21km). After circularization of 75km orbit I had over 3k+3k LF+O left. Probably around 1.5km dv.

Spaceplanes are definitely possible still. Coming from FAR+DRE+AJE I'd say current stock is easier. Did a 130-ton spaceplane and lifted 20-tons of cargo in a mk3 bay to 100km circular orbit with plenty of fuel left. If I used the payload as fuel the plane could probably land on minmus, drill and refine to full fuel again and go pretty much anywhere. Possibly. And it was a horribly wobbly design. One thing I noticed is control surfaces create enormous amounts of drag, so any small oscillations your plane does reduces efficiency a lot. On that note, I found just by using control surfaces to airbrake the new actual airbrake parts were unnecessary.

Like many have stated being restricted to very basic parts and tier 1 buildings can be a fresh challenge for veterans. After some 10 launches I have been to munar orbit and back. With the 909 now unlocked I am going to try design a munar landing mission with less than 30 parts. I have done stock tylo landers with all science collection stuff that weighed 5.1 tons, but that was with old engine performance and parts from higher up the tech tree. This should be interesting. After that... well, just to unlock the ability to take a surface sample would cost me 1 052 000 funds, which is absolutely ludicrous. I will probably just start a normal career without quickloading or crew respawn.

I think it's great you need to deal with some kind of complexity with the engine as a tradeoff for ISP. The heat management is kinda backwards though. As I understand NERVAs, the process of pumping fuel through the reactor and out the nozzle actually cools the system down. The more thrust, the more it cools down. The nuclear reactor would have some kind of control rods to control the reactor temperature. Higher temperature would produce higher specific impulse, and there would be a balance of reactor temperature and fuel flow rate and these would determine specific impulse and thrust. This might be too complicated for what squad wants for the base game, but I think it would be neat to have the engine heat up when you activate it (it could blow up if you leave it like that without thrust). The specific impulse would reach its peak 800 seconds at near max temperatures, and you could cool the engine down by applying more thrust or shutting it down completely. I imagine around 90% thrust should reach steady state at 800s ISP.

I do like the new aerodynamics. Made a quick Mk3 hull 130-ton plane, 125km circular orbit: I don't know how realistic the massive thrust boost at mach 1.5-3.7 for RAPIERs is, but it's so much fun feeling them kick off and boosting speed to ~1300m/s in less than a minute while I am scrambling to gain some altitude before the plane melts from friction. As for the discussion of RAPIERs being the only option for SSTOs, well yeah. And they should be. There is a reason normal turbojets can't fly to space, Skylons SABREs are one of the promising technologies that might be able to. What we need is scramjets to give some variety.

DC 1.1 E After enormous trouble making a plane stable with FAR aero and the "new" .25 stock parts I finally managed to make a fairly reliable light spaceplane. Mods needed: B9, procedural wings and FAR aerodynamics. Craft File DC 1.1 E (E for export version) I could make a version without B9 fairly easy but I like the look of their sabre engines and the functionality of the landing gear, the convenience of airbrakes and RCS, etc. Categories (FAR Aero): Best light SSTO Best passenger transport SSTO Best looking Don't think this qualifies for best use of B9 parts. Flying instructions: AG1 = toggle engine mode AG2 = toggle wheel motors/steering AG3 = toggle airbrakes AG4 = toggle solar panels This thing can get up to mach 5.5 with airbreathing engines - climb at around 20 degree to 20km, then at 10 degrees climb to ~30 km. Try to aim for speed of 1700m/s once you reach 30km, adjusting AoA as necessary. Massive L/D ratio should make adjustments fairly easy. Ideally at that ~30km and 1700m/s switch to closed cycle (AG1). Circularizing a 100km orbit should take about 550 m/s delta-v, with 450m/s left for rendezvous and deorbit. Payload capacity is 4 passengers and one stock cargobay with at least 3 tons of payload. No matter what you put or don't put in the cargobay, the plane should remain stable as the cargobay is located slightly ahead of CoM. Also as fuel is used the plane becomes increasingly stable. This was designed as part of a fully reusable moon exploration mission - the plane flies crew and science packages to LKO, a dedicated (also reusable) spacecraft lands on the moon and brings back stuff, and the plane then returns them to KSC. As such, it needed to be cheap to operate - a full trip to orbit and back costs only up to 400 kredits! Album: http://imgur.com/a/QYC74

Voted 4. I try to be efficient (mostly cost-efficient, as funds seem to be a bottleneck for me), but as I do all my vehicle testing in the career mode with no reverts, I tend to go for the simple, reliable design rather than hyper optimized and complicated. That means no freaking spaceplanes. But that's just for my latest .25 career. Usually I do way over-engineered stuff.

The way I think of asparagus staging is all engines firing, staging happening around the ship. Parallel/onion staging -> all engines firing, staging going from outside to inside. Twisted candle -> all engines firing, staging going along the length of the ship from bottom to up. The staging in my video is doing staging both around the ship (asparagus) and along the length of the ship (candle), again all engines firing. So in a sense it's a 2D hybrid of asparagus/candle. You could even do 3D staging doing all of the above simultaneously. The issue of dropping 2 tanks each stage is only to preserve symmetry. With all tanks arranged along the length of the ship it is already symmetric, so you only need to drop one tank in twisted candle staging. The amount of dropped tanks is a necessary feature but not a defining one, imo.

Well, it's a combination of twisted candle and asparagus. Not just asparagus in an odd shape...

If asparagus staging is more mass-efficient than stacked or parallel, and twisted candle even more so than asparagus - how efficient is this: ?