Grenartia

I always figured they had a knack for handling ionizing radiation (why else would they consider a NERV to be a viable engine?), and, given their ability to exist for years on nothing but air and light, some sort of autotroph.

@eddiew What is a Jinx Intercept ascent?

Completed work on my first stock SSTO (i.e., further testing and refinement, adding new capabilites, increasing propellant mass to account for the increase in mass, figuring out the best flight profile, setting up action groups, etc.). All in all, it works like a dream. It can only send 2 passengers (and no cargo) to a 100km orbit, but since it has a docking port (conveniently located right in front of the cockpit, in case I ever want to try flying a whole mission from that perspective), and is powered by a NERV, this shouldn't be too much of a limit once I get an orbital fuel depot up and running. I figure if I want to do a mission to, say, Laythe, I could probably construct a mothership for it to dock with, which could also carry cargo. Speaking of cargo, I also started work on a cargo SSTO, but its still got a few teething problems (I probably overengineered it).

*right clicks, selects "paste"* *spam link posted on another forum pops up* I'm certainly not gonna post that.

Teal'c was an incompetent warrior and a hasshak.

*Skylon intensifies*

So, I actually built my first truly stock SSTO today, and got it to orbit on the first try.

Has the landing gear problem been ficks'd?

KerbPaint's been updated, I take it?

Use an imagehosting service. Imgur is what I use, and what most other people here use, but as long as you get a URL for your image(s), you can use whatever. There should be an option at the bottom of the post box to insert media, you can use that to actually display the pics.

How did you do that? Actually, that's not how the warp scale works. TOS warp scale used v=(w^3)*c. TNG warp scale (which is what was used for the subsequent series, though I'm not sure about ENT) used v=(w^(10/3))*c for w>=9. However, the limit as w approaches 10 from the left approaches infinity, so you can't actually get faster than warp 10 (but I don't think there's any figure given for the exact function as w approaches 10 from the left). Also, its only warp 4.04. 404. Warpspeed not found. Again, no such thing as something over warp 10. However, he did WAAAAAAY more than 5000c. Its actually 11009620131338761.030472621162471c

I've discovered another use for Rapiers: RATO engines.

I'm not too particularly surprised. That engine you're using has a max thrust at somewhere in the neighborhood of Mach 12. My second entry is still being developed. Found it too complicated to design a mothership actually capable of taking off without either falling apart during a climb, running out of gas before altitude, or veering off course during take-off, so I'm going with a vertically-launched design from the launchpad. The way I see it, this still falls within rules, since the actual craft will be flying (nearly) horizontally and use wings to maintain lift. Just have to refine my design a bit, since I was drunken designing it last night and yesterday.

Well, I always use precoolers. I think my issue was I wasn't using enough Rapiers.

I tried a heatshield in the January challenge and the best I could manage was 5.6. Had problems with the wings melting off. Nah, this will generate lift from wings. I was just repeating a tagline for the F-104 Starfighter.

Wouldn't a radiator increase drag by a lot, though? I need to look into getting FAR. Also, I'd hold off on the champagne if I were you, because I'm working on my Speed Demon II. Or as I like to call it, the Missile with a Kerbal in it. As an addition to what Carl posted below, it was discovered in the January challenge that precoolers could withstand a lot more heat than advertized (in light of the info below, this makes sense). This is extremely interesting. Why's that?

In what version was that again? Sorry. I tried KER once, didn't really like it.

It took you 24 Rapiers to get 0.01 Mach better than my 1 Rapier design? I think I'm winning this from an efficiency standpoint. Also, I use MJ for Mach number calculation. So its not a total stock design, but since I'm not using MJ's piloting functions, I'm confident I'm within the spirit of the challenge. Also, I discovered early on that BigS strakes are the way to go. Really, its the only way to minimize drag without turning your plane into a jet missile. Plus, extra fuel storage never hurts. I keep the BigS deltas for the mothership.

Or, you know, just edit the OP.

I'd like to request that such submissions be put into a separate, "modded" category, so that those of us using stock parts aren't at a disadvantage.

I've yet to see if I can break the 5.7 barrier, but I'm not gonna hold my breath.

I give you the Speed Demon. I do want to point out that I couldn't maintain speed at level flight. The aircraft goes so fast it needs to periodically dive to maintain altitude, because Kerbin is curving away from its flight path. However, I feel this is still a valid submission, because it can maintain its high speed in a shallow climb (as noted by MJ's AoA indicator).

I was actually testing out a variant I did for a similar challenge back in January. I actually went faster during the test than I did back then. I'll do my official run and post screens in a while.

I was wondering temp, but after I originally posted that, I went back to the SPH and looked at the heat tolerance. 2900K. That's blistering.

I just overheated a Mk1 Service Bay on my last test run. This is a good sign.