I was messing around with some fighter style planes and having a blast until I thought of an idea... a nuclear powered plane! Safe for everyone, and Bob gets the capsule door bolted tight, because he'll never need to leave!
The first few tests went well.
Mostly well.
It took flight. It stayed flying. It didn't even burn through it's fuel as fast as I thought it would!
So I set myself a challenge: Land on the island airfield. A few attemps later, it was done!
But I was beginning to realize how incredibly fast the ISP (and thus the delta-V) rose with altitude, at least early on. In fact, during my cruise to the island airfield, i'd gained nearly 200s of ISP in just a kilometer of altitude!
So a new challenge presented itself: SSTO. Shockingly, I didn't even need to make any major modifications! A reaction wheel here, a shorter wingspan there, moar struts... and I'd made it to space!
Further optimisation can definitely be made. I threw this together in around an hour and a half. If you run any similar missions, please include them here!