Lt_Duckweed

A nuke as tons of twr for the Mun. Actually you can use nukes to land on/take off from all airless bodies in the game, and a combination of nukes, breaking ground props, and wings on all atmospheric bodies other than Eve.

I don't know if it's possible at all even with ignore max temp. Kerbol has 1.75g and you need more than 50km/sec of dv. Sadly Kerbol will remain the only body in the system that you cannot SSTO from.

Take a look at high bypass turbofans. They are essentially ducted fans powered by a small jet engine. It's not uncommon for them to have a blade tip speed eceeding 400m/s

Sorry, it's a EM-32 rotor. And I'm providing the ec it needs using rtgs rather than batteries, fuel cells, or solar panels. Mach 1.062 to be exact! Ducted fans actually can still provide thrust with blade tip speed exceeding Mach 1 thanks to the shroud. But the effects of the shroud aren't simulated in ksp, it's just baked into the blade instead.

1. Level flight skimming the ocean. 2. 1 medium rotor powered by 8 rtgs, with 4 of the largest fan blades, with the blades offset towards the center of the rotor by I think 2 shift snaps. 3. 2 contra rotating. 4. About 4.5 tons. 5. Yeah stock. Here's a pic of it:

The fastest I have been able to get at sea level on Kerbin is 377m/s. On Jool the same craft was able to get to around 800 m/s.

@Laie For slowing down, find a nice dragy but light part and stuff a ton of them in a payload bay at the back of the craft. When you are ready to slow down open the bay.

Pretty much spot on. You have to use props to climb to 115km-118km and about 450-500m/s on props. Once there you have between 550 and 600 specific impulse on the nervs, and a twr of just under 0.3, from there you burn the nukes and use the props up to around 800m/s at something like 125km, then my setups close the props off in a payload bay to reduce drag. From there it's up to the nukes alone to burn from 800m/s to 5700m/s. The toughest part is getting past the sound barrier at 900m/s (Hydrogen atmosphere), I usually do that in a shallow dive. Once you get past that it's smooth sailing.

You actually cannot get off Jool in an SSTO without Nervs, as you need around 8km/s of delta-v. To date I am the only person who has done a Jool SSTO so I'd love to welcome others to the club!

Start in orbit of Jool, go to Jool 0 altitude, return to Jool orbit, without staging or otherwise getting rid of parts.

Keeping the nukes might not be a bad idea, as they can really help with efficiency during the parts of the flight post 20km or so. For my part I've been exploring weather a sea level eve SSTO is possible with just props and nukes. I've SSTO'd every other body in the system (Yes that includes Jool) using some combination of nukes and props so defeating Eve is a pride point for me now.

It takes very, very little liquid fuel to sustain velocity at 35km with a Nerv or two. In Laie's earlier post, his craft had less than 10kn of drag and had enough fuel to fly on Nerv's for nearly 3 hours.

Laie is on the right track, using a nuke to cruise at just under the altitude limit is going to be the fastest way by far. Only way to get faster is to invert the craft and use negative lift to stay under the height limit at greater than orbital speeds, but at that point I suspect even the hardiest parts will eventually roast.

Max I've been able to get on kerbin is 376 m/s with an RTG powered plane. Max overall was on Jool (higher speed of sound thanks to the hydrogen atmosphere) where I got a bit over 800m/s with the exact same plane.

How is Bradley Whistance not on this list? Brad and Strat are two of the best players in the game, and crazy entertaining to boot.

If you open the F12 menu, there should be an option under Pysiscs -> Aero to turn on aero information (including total drag from that part) in part action windows. Turn that on and hunt down the offending parts.

Technically yesterday, not today but... I made what is, to my knowledge, the first and only Jool SSTO ever:

Another possibility for improving this setup, offsetting the blades as far out as they can be while still shielded once the bay is closed could trade away low altitude performance (blade force, both thrust and drag, is farther from center of rotation, thus worse torque to thrust ratio, low altitude is almost always torque limited) for better high altitude performance (blade speed is higher farther from center of rotation giving more thrust per blade, and allowing lower angle of attack, meaning more of the produced thrust is prograde, drag is very low that high so we don't care so much about torque to thrust ratio).

As the game has evolved, there have been many things that are commonly considered, or were once considered, impossible, until someone (often Brad Whistance or stratzenblitz75) proved them possible. Examples would be "no SSTO from EVE", "no SSTO from EVE sea level", "no orbit on only ions", "no SSTO to Tylo and back". What are some other once though "impossible" feats, and what are examples of them being beaten? I'll go first: "SSTO from Jool is not possible" This is a stock+dlc SSTO from Jool's lower atmosphere. (Admittedly a ton of part clipping) It has 17 RTG's powering 2 medium rotors with 24 of the largest fan blade each, giving it a top speed in Jool's atmosphere of 440m/s at 115km. Fuel is provided by 32 mk1 liquid fuel tanks clipped into the fairing, 14 big-s wings, and 4 big-s strakes. It has infinite range in atmo thanks to the RTG's, and can fly all the way down to 0 elevation, then fly back up to 115km. At the time of ignition it has an ISP of approximately 558s, with a local TWR of 0.294, but by the time it reaches local mach 1 it has reached a hefty 0.389 local TWR and ISP of 636s. After that point it's smooth sailing all the way to orbit, the low drag of the craft coupled with the high lift and the low heating of the Joolian atmosphere means that burning up is never a real danger, and it reaches a stable orbit with 452m/s of fuel remaining, 35 min and 1 sec after lighting the nukes. There is still obviously a lot that could be done to refine this craft, for example, we have 17 perfectly good RTG's lying around, why not use them to power a couple of ion engines? Likewise for the EC being provided by the nukes during the burn. More wing + more fan blades might possibly allow a higher prop flight ceiling and top speed, potentially saving more fuel/dv on the early stages of the accent than it hurts you due to the extra dry mass, or even enabling dropping an engine (saving a lot of dry mass). So the next question, with further improvements is Jool sea level -> Kerbin possible? 1880m/s or so gets you a Laythe encounter, from which you can setup a good Tylo encounter for a minimal dv transfer to Kerbin, then perform a gravity assist to lower entry velocity enough to survive on the next pass, or setup a KKE if you want to be extra cautious.