Raythain

Well, got it to space! No mission report yet, because during a pre-deorbit inspection, Bill noticed that something was wrong with the orbiter... But holy cow, figuring out the CoM and thrust vector issues made me appreciate the details of the actual STS flight plan. Finally had to give up on SRBs for now - using the thrust limiter to balance the thrust vector but keep a good TWR for the 40t payload was too tedious. So I cheated and used some LF boosters with gimballed engines, now I just have to get the hang of the flight profile, and set the priority correctly on the ET tanks so I don't have to pump fuel around mid flight.

Thanks. It's only the second time I've put something down back at KSC, so crooked or not I'm excited. Someone did this with the carrier on top, I need to go back and find out who did it to thank them. When I was piggybacking the orbiter, the jet carrying it handled like a bigger brick than the orbiter. Of course that version also had wings so stubby that it would get into a flat spin at subsonic speeds. Kinda a problem when the transport didn't go supersonic. I found it easier to follow other submissions when the author put some sort of story to it, so I figured I'd do the same. Now I just have to figure out how to get a balance launch vehicle - right now it rolls over about 50 m into the air because I'm trying to not put an engine on the ET...

This is a pretty cool challenge. Finally got my first entry together, and started with a glide test. Fully stock vehicle, have KER, KAC and Bon Voyage as my only mods. Here's my entry for STS 1-T You'll have to forgive the names, apparently the KSC engineers believe that KSP should stand for Kerbal Space Puns.