wibou7

Doubtful. For one, SpaceX rockets work and rarely explode. And there is not even any struts showing up. Totally NOT kerbal.

WRESAT used a Redstone launcher? Wow, that's really surprising, Redstone was a balistic missile (before it became a Rocket booster) after all! It surprises me that US agreed to gave one away to Australia (those must've been highly sensitive/classified in the '60!!). Hmmm it seems even wikipedia agree: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redstone_(rocket_family) Thanks for sharing that @Martian Emigrant

I seem to burn in flame whenever I go above ~5.5km/s. I'm pretty sure I am doing-it-wrong (tm), but still, 8km/s looks rather high. Has that ever been mathemetically calculated? Or tested practically in a challenge of some sort? I'm very curious what's the ultimate velocity limit to survivable kerbin re-entry... I wonder what kind of shenigan craft could survive at 8km/s (or above!). ...an idea for a challenge maybe..?

Any space plane that reach orbit would exceed 2000m/s. So basically, your challenge could be renamed to "build a spaceplane then take it to Laythe". This has been done many, many times and there are plenty of similar challenges around.

I'm curious on the reasons why Dress and Duna are so far at the end instead of the typical Duna -> Dres -> Jool -> Eeloo? Did you find a nice tranfer window, did you want to shed some mass at Jool first or is it simply to reduce velocity on the way back to Kerbin?

According to rules, it would qualify if it would be on the runway. There was nothing in the rules about HORIZONTAL take-off / landing anyways EDIT: Ah snot, @RedPandaz ninjaed me and added it

Indeed! Fuel + engine in ONE part. @MarvinKitFox, have some reps!

What the hell is a "dab"?? Google points to that: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dab_(dance) Could you please just give the basic details in one of your challenge, for once??

Maybe. It's not clearly stated so one can only assume. Vaguely defined challenges rarely take off, I think @RedPandaz might want to fix that.

...the challenge explicitely states that the parts must land intact. EVA-ing your kerbal won't help. That's pretty much the only option. And even there there is no guarantee (you won't have any mean to control). So strap a heatshield on a seat, drop it from space and pray that it land safely. Rinse and repeat until it does...

Except for the +1000 points for supersonic landing, speed has no impact on score. Thus landing 10 kerbals at 250m/s would give you a lower score than landing 100 kerbal at 50m/s... I think you should review you scoring system.

This is awesome! I want to see you do the race with that thing. And PLEASE use "Born to be wild" as the soundtrack

So the vessel must be exactly 1 stock part + 1 command seat. Both parts must land intact. Soooo no control (would require SAS or control surfaces), no runway landing (no wheel), no parachute (command seat won't attach to chutes). The challenge is to drop something in free fall without any mean to control it and pray that it survives... I fail to see the point or the fun in that.

It is an interesting challenge.. except that KSP physic does not model ground effects which are the very basis of the Real-Life Ekranoplane. I'm curious to see what kind if craft people will build though

Can we see the COM and COT with full tank full and empty? Maybe your COM shift too far out of your COT when your fuel goes low? Also, we do not see the engine on those picture... Do you have one engine or several? Maybe the fuel flow is messed up causing one engine to flame-out, resulting in asymmetric trust.

Ah! Right, sorry about that. I've got to say, I'm surprised you got it that easily. I guess the next step would be to try on Eve

Interesting attempt... That said, on the picture 5, your ascent vehicle seems to be on an escape trajectory out of kerbin already (or maybe I don't get the picture right, but there is no orbit or sub-orbital trajectory there). That vehicle would have easily made orbit by itself... Maybe it's just me but I feel the spirit of the challenge would be to keep the ascent vehicle sub-orbital the whole time, which is quite hard due to time constraint on rendez-vous.

That's your "average rescue mission"? Gosh, I'd hate to be part of your space program! Joke aside, how sub-orbital is your doomed ship, in term of dV? As stated, if you are a hundred or two dV short than orbital velocity, that's quite doable. But then it would be easier to simply add that to your launch vehicle (OP wants to catch an ascent vehicle, not the other way around).

This was proven possible in the past, but it is terribly unpracticable. You have to time you ascent just right so you get within close range (probably within ~5km) of your orbiter. It is possible to achieve on a manual ascent by sheer luck but you would most likely need some automation mods if you wish to reproduce the result. Then your orbiter has to match speed (i.e. goes sub-orbital) as fast a possible, hook the pod and then get back into orbit. All this on a few minutes timerange (depends how high you are and how close to orbital velocity the pod is). The orbiter would need substential TWR both before and after it grab the pod. Then there is the delta-V requirements... If we assume you are missing X m/s to achieve orbit, then your orbit need at least 2*X m/s (1 time to match speed and 1 time to go back into orbit). Achievable but it gets harder and harder the farther your pod is to orbit. If it is very close to orbit it gets way easier to simply add the missing dV to the pod itself. If it is very far from orbit, the dV + TWR requirements on the orbiter makes it a challenge on itself. Soooo... in conclusion, this might seems like a good idea but it's just too terribly hard to be used on a real mission. It might be good challenge material (that's challenging for sure!) but you might want to add some more meat then.

The contract said "pass out" not "liquify"

While it MIGHT be possible to do even lighter, you already pushed it quite to the limit. I don't think there will be many challenger to try and beat you. Very impressive indeed.

Don't take offense, but if your challenge designs were a little bit more polished, you wouldn't get a link to the challenge submission guide everytime. The guide is not just "proof that a challenge is possible", it also requires for a challenge to be fun. And to be an original idea. And to have a way to determine how to win (if applicable). And to be detailled clearly so that everybody understand what to do easily. ... In their current forms, pretty much all of your challenges end up on the "second page of forgetness". Almost nobody ever try them. Ask yourself : could it be because of the points above? Take a look at the challenges @Rath posted. They are all great exemples that had hundred of challengers and that were re-posted on several different KSP versions. If I take a look at this very challenge: - Is it original? Actually, it might be! There was some "how high can you go on starting tech" in the past but I haven't seen that in a while... Maybe we are due for a reboot? - How do we win? "Go farthest" or "go as fast and as high as you can" are both very VERY vague. Farthest from what? In altitude? From KSP? Straight Up? What if I escape Kerbin SOI, how will you count then? Fastest as you can.. ok, but how do that add up to "farthest"? Should I try to go higher or faster? A rocket could go highest but be slower than another one, would I win then? What if I launch with an angle to make orbit? What if somebody actually make orbit, how will you count then? Scott Manley once made it to Minmus with starting tech... How "far" is that? If that's not clearly defined, people won't try OR you will get tons of people that simply find loop-hole. - Is is detailled clearly? Not quite, as I pointed out in "How do we win". But there is more to say... By "tier one", I understand you mean "the first tech node you start carrer with". But that's really NOT obvious, as @Rath pointed out, it could meant "tier one building" just like the cavemen challenge... Maybe you should define exactly what you meant? Are mod permitted? If so, to what extend? Can I use auto-pilot? Modded part ok? What is "powered separation"? Do you meant using exhaust to "explode" a spent stage? That might not be obvious to everyone... I could go on but I think you understand my point (I hope!) Take a look at the challenges posted as example, then compare to this one... this one is clearly lacking in details.

I find the attachment is quite rigid, the joint less so... I often had rigidity problems if a large ship was anchored sliiiightly off-center. However, this is no longer an issue in 1.2 with the magical "auto-strut" feature. The biggest mass is pretty much always the asteroid in tow, so "auto-strut - biggest mass" work quite well there. Full disclaimer: auto-strut is known to be Kraken-bait (so was the Klaw *long sigh*). Use cautiously. Make numerous quicksaves while using. Reboot KSP periodically.

This is typically caused by the "control" being transferred to the docking ports or some other ill placed part. The problem is cause by the part being vertical while the wheels are horizontal... Hence the motor control are confused. The easy fix is to select the probe core (or any other part oritented in a sane way compared to the wheel), to right click and to select "control from here". By the way, welcome to the forum

Minimum "safe" distance is 7061m: http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Mun (see "Terrain") That's the lowest you can go without any risk of hitting a mountain. Putting a craft in a 7062m x 7062m orbit does not seem like a challenge to me... it would be easier than mun landing in any case. Orbits that don't cross high point coordinates could even go lower... But once below 5000m, your craft would be at risk of being deleted if you switch focus and you wouldn't be able to timewarp without switching focus. Personnally, I wouldn't have the patience to wait for a full orbit to complete without timewarp. There might be matter for a challenge there, but not in its current form