What went up didn't come down

[TheAlmightyOS]

Might not sound like a huge achievement to you people, but I successfully launched a heavy lifter with a dummy weight of 135 Tonnes to an orbit of 250,000M. Why am I happy about this? Until now I have only been able to get small things into space. Small space planes, probes and Mun landers. I have never been able to send a 5M rocket with payload into orbit. I did, however, successfully create Kerbin's first ICBM (which I dubbed the Kerbin Missile Crisis).

There is still some room for improvement. TWR (going off KER here) is 2.24 at first stage and 2.26 on the second stage when the boosters are jettisoned. From what I am reading around here that is "wasteful" and I could have added more weight or lessened the initial fuel.

With the heavy lifter working, I was able to launch an experimental craft I had on the back burner for quite some time. I got screens this time but work blocks imagur. If you guys know an alternative I am all ears. I call it the Orbital Placement Shuttle (OPS). Set up for both manned and unmanned missions. Intended for extended manurers (burns) needed to "tug" a ship or spacestation to a desired location. However, it is designed to be modular and be fitted for whatever task is necessary (refuelling or search and rescue for example) while in space. The OPS is roughly 123 Tonnes w/fuel (unmanned version). Main engine is a KP-XL Pulsed Inductive Thruster resized to fit 5M. Max thrust is 800kN. Additional thrust is provided by 8 radially mounted LF-9 Magnetoplasmadynamic Engines (four facing forward, four back) that add an additional 234kN each. Obviously, only one set of four would be active at one time unless you are running an experiment on how quickly you can run out of fuel/ec. Electrical power is provided by four MX-L Fission Reactors, each with three XR-2000 Standardized Heat Radiators. Under IDEAL conditions they can each produce 3000ec/s or 12000ec/s total. Fuel is stored both radially and in the stack. Four HB-40-3 Radial Hydrogen tanks provide 33,000 units(?) of hydrogen for the LF-9's while a single ARG-100 (resized to 5M) stores 182,400 units of argon to feed the KP-XL. A BK-12K battery (resized to 5M) stores 100,800ec for use when the reactors are off. No RCS on this craft. Instead, it is equipped with an oversized 5M SAS from USI. Manned or unmanned, the OPS has a RC-L01 Remote guidance unit, resized to 5M. The Manned variant adds the M27 Overview cockpit and C125 Axial adaptor. Those are adjusted to 5M as well.

After getting the huge monster-hauler up into orbit I was surprized at how nimble and fuel efficent it was. Once I create some nose mounted tool kits from KAS I won't have to worry about stranded kerbals or stations in less than ideal orbits.

Can't wait till I can post screens

[Whirligig Girl]

This ought to go in general KSP. This isn't really a fan-work.

[TheAlmightyOS]

This ought to go in general KSP. This isn't really a fan-work.

last time I posted general ksp discussion in general it got moved to mods. forget it. I will just curb my excitement and not post next time

[Ten Key]

Can't wait to see the screenshots. The most I've ever managed to heft into orbit in one go was about 50-60 tons, and at that my lifter got so top heavy I had to drop the mid-stage early and ended up burning a fair amount of the "payload" just to get it up there.

I did, however, successfully create Kerbin's first ICBM (which I dubbed the Kerbin Missile Crisis).

[OrtwinS]

last time I posted general ksp discussion in general it got moved to mods. forget it. I will just curb my excitement and not post next time

Please, don't let you enthusiasm be vanquished by the first prick with a back-seat-moderation fetish.

I congratulate you on your achievement. In all my KSP years (since 0.12) I've never launched such a heavy load. Mostly because my PC would melt

I too would love to see the pictures.

[KSK]

This ought to go in general KSP. This isn't really a fan-work.

Not that it matters but apparently screenshots are coming, at which point - problem solved. Besides it's no less a fan-work than this.