Aetharan

Okay, so I tried both retrograde and prograde flights. The prograde flew a few m/s slower, a few hundred meters higher, and (subsequently) more efficiently (cruising with a burn rate of 0.01224 liquid fuel per second), but didn't show a significant difference in the apparent ground distance covered vs. degrees around the great circle I traveled, so I don't know what's going on with that. Since I flubbed the second flight's water landing, the first (and less awesome) will have to suffice for this plane's report. Highest Altitude: 15,253m. Ground Distance Covered: 6,604,773m. Score: 6,757.303. Imgur Album

Something's a bit odd with the readouts, given that I'm showing similar numbers for half a circumnavigation retrograde to what you guys are for more than a full one prograde. I might need to see what the readout looks like for a flight east with the same plane after I finish my current west flight. Edit: As of this edit (9:30 AM CST), my current iteration has covered 2,507,029m ground distance retrograde, is at 168º 50' 30" E, and has 50 units of fuel left with MechJeb reporting another 1h 00m 33.1s burn time. After this one's landed, I'll run prograde with the same plane and see how different things are.

Ouch. I was just uploading pics when I saw that you'd posted. I've improved, but not quite by enough: Max altitude: 13,899m. Ground Distance Covered: 5,110,835m. Score: 5,249.825. Imgur Album

Back in the fight for lightest to orbit, I at least tweaked around positioning and messed with the launcher and fuel-loading after admitting that the basic design of the upper stage was impossible for my own to beat. xD

@Nefrums this is going to be another challenge where I get to learn from you by piloting copies of and iterations on one of your designs after pushing my own to their limits, isn't it?

Too true, but the third and fourth? Not quite so necessary (yet). Edit to add a side-note: Unless somebody actually beats the quartet of 4s, I think I'll call that enough. I have rather extreme doubts that I'll be able to accomplish what would otherwise be my next goal-- OVER 9000!

Well, another go nets me a max altitude of 14,104 m and a total ground-distance covered of 4,299.902 km, for a score of 4,440.942. Imgur Album

I appreciate the confirmation, @LazySoUseHyperedit. Kinda hoping to see more people get into the challenge, or there isn't much point in having pushed my score up another 1,592 points with that third entry. I can't make the orbit work without outright copying @Nefrums, but I can do my best to set a high enough bar on the plane side to at least slightly challenge my fellow pilots!

Well, I've made a third go (second plane), and managed a max altitude of 25.676 km and ground distance traveled of 3,008.472 km for a score of 3,625.232. Imgur Album Edit: As a side-note, this plane also has an RTG, this time concealed in its fairing nosecone. As before, since it cannot derive any driving force from this electricity, but is instead using it to maintain the ability to utilize the cockpit's reaction wheel and the plane's lights, I don't believe it to be grounds for disqualification (or, for that matter, the use of MechJeb's Smart A.S.S.), with the fact that my previous entry was allowed on the board serving as precedent for both.

And now I'm driving myself crazy, because my winning entry in the Lightest Craft to Orbit thread actually had 100 LFO total on board: two filled Oscar-Bs and a Mk0 Liquid Fuel Fuselage at 40% full. If it hadn't been based around a command seat, I'd just re-submit that here. Instead, I'm struggling to replicate the feat with the much heavier/draggier pod options available in stock. Edit: For my second entry, I built a plane. Max altitude: 25,874m Ground distance covered: 1,774,301m. Score is thus 2,033.041. I didn't manage to screencap while I was at the flight's peak altitude, but that information is included in the final screenshot. Imgur Album

Negative. The challenge isn't to start with 100 units of LFO. It's to use 100 units. Refueling missions or equipment would still result in using the fuel thus acquired.

I've given it a go. Ground distance traveled was 252,375m. Peak altitude was 47,669m. Thus, my score is 729.065. Imgur Album Obviously, aiming for altitude hurt my final score pretty badly.

Just from experimental tinkering (with an aim of launching a couple of tons worth of necessary gear to get a Kerbal involved and safely back out of orbit), I'm looking at more than 70 tons just to get the first 350 m/s of delta-V (at an average TWR around 2, in two ascent stages so far.) I could, theoretically, build it on out and make it to orbit, but it would wind up being even heavier than my brute-forced retrosolar rescue attempts, and even harder on a CPU that barely handled those.

Seeking clarity before I make an attempt: 1) You're making a blanket ban on all mods except those specifically listed, and thus ruling out any entries with visual enhancers? It's only a minor inconvenience to uninstall Stock Visual Enhancements and the like, but I'd prefer not making unnecessary writes to the SSD the game's on. 2) Are you asking for a launch with only a probe core, LESs, and Sepratrons (no decouplers, no structural parts, etc), or just that LESs provide all forward thrust for a vessel without wings? If it's a "stock parts and physics, no autopilot, but otherwise go wild" sort of thing, I may give it a shot.

The level of difficulty isn't actually all that high. A big, dumb rocket can do it (as I've shown), and a little, smart one can do it too if you're more careful with how you spend your fuel. What difficulty there is in the challenge comes from figuring out exactly what mission profile you're going to aim for, then constructing a ship capable of pulling it off. Of course, I've had about a dozen failures for each of the two successes that I've posted, and am still having more as I work for a third (and faster) one. Take the Dwarf Fortress mental approach to it: "Losing is fun!"

Yeah, brute-force methods require a ton of delta-V, and the faster you want to get it done, the more you need (as my own attempts have shown). I'm still looking for ways to pull off a rescue that would bring Burberry home (using the save file in the first post, modified to fill up the entire Community Tech Tree) in less than the time that it takes for the first orbital alignment between Kerbin and the Goliath. So far, the best I've managed was an intersect before Day 70, and that burned over 7 km/s of delta-V just getting the intersect, with a relative velocity of somewhere around 23 km/s at closest approach. If you assume that a quick return would require similar delta-V, then we're talking a required ship capability of some 60+ km/s after making orbit. Edit: With that initial phase angle of roughly 180º on Day 1, we hit an angle of 360º on Day 97 during the 1:00 hour. Thus, my ultimate goal is to get Burberry home before this mark.

@Cpt Kerbalkrunch Thanks for the praise, but I wasn't done yet! @Physics Student You think the Olympia was ginormous? Behold... the Kilamanjaro! http://imgur.com/a/HuCK7 I managed to come within one day of cutting my mission time in half with this mission profile, and could probably have done better still if I'd actually been calculating more than eyeballing. Still, I'm happy with this one, so don't expect a third entry from me today. TL:DR version of the mission profile for those who don't want to go through the story in the album: Launch an oversized ship into LKO, lower orbit to intercept with the Goliath, reverse direction there instead of in orbit around Kerbin, pick Burberry up, turn around a second time at that lower altitude, lift back up to meet Kerbin, circularize, then deorbit and land wherever. Mission ends at UT 159d 2:31.

I've done it! Burberry is on the ground in the grasslands west of KSC on Year 1 Day 316 at 4:53. Sadly, the craft file is too large to upload to KerbalX. That's why I've stuck it on Google Drive, so you can download it here. Unlike others in this thread, I tend to subscribe to the 'mod it till you break it' style of gameplay, but I've done my best to minimize that for this mission. MechJeb is present (via MechJeb and Engineer for All rather than adding a part), and is used for the ascent until shortly past max Q, for calculating circularization burns a couple of times, and for several 'match velocity at closest approach' calculations, but otherwise the maneuver planner is reserved for clicking 'execute next node' on one that I worked out myself. The ship itself uses only stock parts, arranged with the help of EditorExtensionsRedux and Hangar Extender, with the LFO tanks having been reskinned via the combination of Color Coded Canisters and Fuel Tanks Plus. http://imgur.com/a/RWlo0

I've been making efforts all week, and will share when I'm finally victorious. My last ship failed not because of physics, but because my computer froze by the time it was about 20m off the launch pad. I guess that a 4000-part monstrosity is just a tad too much. I have family functions to attend today, but some time this afternoon I'll be getting back to work on this challenge. Edit: The previous attempt (of which, in retrospect, I shouldn't have wiped the screenshots when I failed, since the album could have been fun) wound up a few thousand m/s of delta-V short of my targeted mission profile. It was a sad, sad error that I didn't realize I'd made until I was flying past Kerbin on the return trip, burning as hard as I could, and unable to establish an orbit.

No, they really aren't. If you'll allow me to reference the Challenge Submission Guide: Is this challenge possible? Well, if it is depends entirely upon what "the dab" actually is in the first place. You've skipped the traditional 'good form' attempt by a challenge's submitter to complete their own challenge. What are we trying to do? You haven't given us enough information to work with. How do we win this anyway? Without any rules defined for what you even want us to do, there obviously isn't a way to decide whether or not somebody has 'won' or not.

Even more successful a test flight than Blue Origin was expecting! I'd say this morning has been a victory, even if it was a bit over half an hour late. Edit: Gentlemen (and ladies), it has been loads of fun watching the livestream with you.

That is beautiful! Extra points awarded for the booster surviving an LES firing at max-q. I may have to visit a museum some time in the near future.

Hold again? This is the moment when it's entirely appropriate to scream in frustration, no? Are they having a hard time finding enough red mana to tap?

At least we're back on countdown instead of hold! Looks like we get to watch it go up today after all.

It's an unmanned flight for which they fully intend to press backspace at max-q and sac the booster. Light the candle already!