Thoendi

I have been working quite a bit on that shuttle, following Rune's advice and (I admit) borrowing some ideas here and there from several great designs on these forums. It turned out really great, I really like it. The cargo bay is twice as big, the orbiter lighter and the whole thing more stable (thanks to those new verniers engines). Max payload weight is somewhere around 2 tons. Part count is 180ish without payload and can definitely be improved. Still some fine tuning to do, such as the separation procedures of the boosters, the external tank and the disposable cargo doors that are not so ... reliable, let's say. And the landing is a mess, it ends up most of the time in a pile of debris and the kerbals smiling in the cockpit. I am really considering a parachute landing! Here is the album:

WOW, looks just like the real thing! I must say those mod cargo bay doors are great. And it's computer-friendly, KSP couldn't dream of a better space shuttle!

Thanks for the tips Rune. Actually, I found weird the fact that I needed so much fuel in my orbiter whereas similar designs needed so few. I manage to reach 70+km apoapsis with the fuel from the ET but the orbiter then has a huge task circularizing the orbit. Trying to follow your advice, I removed most of the monopropellant so I could double the size of the bay! There's also a huge gain concerning the weight (lost more than 1/3rd). I'll keep working on it when I have some more time. It looks very promising now!

Currently working on a Space Shuttle powered with the new monopropellant engines. Not because it is useful, but because it is cool! It's all stock (except Mechjeb). It goes into orbit and lands just fine. Well, to be honest, I still haven't managed a landing without breaking the engines, that's only due to my lack of piloting experience. The stock cargo bay is operational but still needs some reworking to make it look better. Here are some pictures: http://imgur.com/a/RPSSS#0

Thanks! I wanted something different for the flag. Couldn't come up with anything better than a Pink Floyd album cover. Which is in my opinion one of the best things to spread throughout the universe I don't think I'll ever go to Dres again. I have a flag there, good enough! Will do the exact same thing with Moho and Eeloo which appear to be boring places as well...

Thanks for the welcome guys! I'll sure look at everything you suggested. I just had a quick look at the Drawing Board and already found a few answers to my questions

Hello guys, new KSPer here checking in! Actually I’ve been playing KSP for a couple months, and really enjoy it. I’ve always been interested in astronomy, space travels etc and I also have a tendency to get addicted to simulation games. So it’s no surprise I bought KSP… Concerning the game, I’m slowly getting familiar with interplanetary travels, rendez-vous, docking etc which makes the game even more fun and adds so many possibilities! I’m currently trying to make Apollo-style interplanetary travels. Not sure if it’s an efficient way but it feels good to travel in style (sadly while performing some early tests, Bob, Bill and Jebediah lost their lives due to parachute failure/bug). ​ Here is Melvin Kerman landed at Dres (terrible destination if you ask me), ready to take off and dock with the CM. I don’t really use mods except MechJeb for the additional information and also some visual enhancement stuffs. That’s it pretty much. The community looks great here, which makes this game even more fantastic