SinBad

I just spent 4 hours reading this entire thread. Wow Parkaboy, this is EPIC! I'm really looking forward to seeing where you take the story next. as a side note: in the mars trilogy, Kim Stanley Robinson had his characters on phobos (or diemos?) suffering in microgravity. their solution was to build a train track around the moon (tiny little potato moon) and they spent their non-working hours living in a train zooming around the moon in what was effectivly a very large diameter centrefuge. not sure if its possibe to actualy build as functional in ksp, but a bit of cubic octagonal monorail just long enough for a screen shot with a stationary rover hab on it shouldn't be too much hassle.

Im not sure this is a socially responsible challenge...

valkyrie rocket. Works like an orion nuclear pulse drive, but the explosion happens at the front of the starship (in the pic below, explosion behind the coil, but in front of the shadow shield) and acts against a magnetic sail. Everything else is towed behind on cables behind a small shadow shield. Much less mass required than pusher plate designs. It is an antimatter rocket though...