Foursh

Thanks kepicness! You're right, the extra wings give the Vulcan enough lift to take off with such low thrust. Also, I actually built an interstellar SSTO . It has some stability issues, but I'll post it when I get it working properly. You aren't missing anything Androsynth. That was my first and only time landing the Vulcan on Minmus and I just slapped on some thrusters so it could land horizontally. The balance was a bit off, so I decided not to include them. If you want to add them yourself, the balance point seems to be directly under the rear wheels.

It's great to see the K Prize continuing into v0.17 Here are two of my latest designs. This design design is almost identical to its predecessor, other than 63 tons of extra fuel. In total it weighs 453 tons. I came in a bit shallow, overshooting the space center. Although this plane is more maneuverable than you might expect, it's still not easy to turn 180 degrees in this thing.I made it, though. The Vulcan is a long range spaceplane designed to land on Minmus. While testing the Vulcan, I was surprised to discover that it can easily reach Duna. In fact, it hardly takes any more fuel than flying to Minmus! I've also flown it to Eve, and it might be possible to reach Jool with a gravity assist from Duna.

Nope, they work fine if you leave them flat. And I wish I could give you the file, but for some reason I didn't save it (I'm an idiot sometimes). I'll try to rebuild it.

I'm afraid not. My reentry brought me down over the ocean and I didn't have enough fuel to reach land. I know it can be done though, so I might give it another shot.

I finally added instructions. I should have done it sooner, but I'm lazy

I used the stubby blue and white nose cone which looks better in my opinion, but I guess it does look pretty nose-less from that angle

Not bad, but if want serious speed, use tailfins and pylons as hydrofoils.

Absolutely gorgeous. What are their top speeds?

I have no clue. Edit: about 390 tons at launch

Here's my three-kerbal seaplane: [spoiler=]

I have two submissions to this challenge. Take-off! Achieving orbit Orbit achieved SPAAAAAACE!!! Re-entering the atmosphere Final approach Success! In spite of the runway's atempts to eat my plane, it survived in one piece! Here's the flight statistics But that's not all; with some minor modifications, it can also land on the Mun Minmus too (much, much easier actually) It can return easily from Minmus, but I think the Mun is a one-way trip. It's not exactly pretty But it makes up for it with RAW POWER! Ascending into the heavens Once again, orbit achieved More space My re-entry was a bit steep, but I needed to burn off some fuel anyways If you leave some fuel for the turbojets, it can fly for quite a distance In retrospect, this was a dangerously steep approach Thankfully it's very nimble for a ship of its size (once it's used up all its fuel, that is) And the flight stats Unfortunately, the Delta Wing III uses up most of its fuel hauling its own bloated body though the atmosphere, so it can't really go very far past LKO. It can't even manage a munar fly-by. Still, for such a massive aircraft, it flies pretty well. I think the Delta Wing is the new maximalist record holder

I think the best way is to head towards 40 degrees, and about 30 or 40 degrees up. You should get a trajectory that looks like this: [spoiler=] I was using the fuel bug fix and I still had over 100L of fuel left.

If you'd like a 3-kerbal lander, you could try my design: [thread]16526[/thread]

Land on both moons in a single trip. It's great practice for interplanetary transfers.

Throttle down as the acceleration increases. Try to keep it under two G's.

To be honest, it isn't actually a very practical rescue solution. It works, technically, but it's pretty challenging to survive re-entry, and the whole thing is clumsy and difficult to use. I did it mostly to see if it was possible.

I wanted to see if a space station in low munar orbit could be seen from the surface. This was as close as I could get I was a bit too low on this one

NEW: The EKRS prototype [spoiler=] Here's a situation you've all probably faced before - you've carefully piloted a lander into orbit around Minmus, selected a perfect landing site and began your descent without incident, but due to an unintended last second lithobraking maneuver your Kerbonauts find themselves stranded. Rescue missions are costly and take time to prepare, not to mention the possibility that the rescue ship could also crash, doubling the number of stranded Kerbals. Thankfully, there is now a better solution. The Emergency Kerbal Return System - a reliable*, cost effective way to safely deliver Kerbals from Minmus to Kerbin. Delivered in advance to Minmus' surface, a single EKRS station can offer immediate rescue to 32 Kerbals. Step 1 - Landing The first step, and possibly the most difficult one, is getting this thing on Minmus. You're going to have to build your own launch/landing stage because mine was awful, but if you need help getting started, this is what it looked like:[spoiler=] Those rockets on the top made landing almost impossible. If I did it again I would attach them to the sides. Also, if you installed the fuel bug fix you will need a slightly larger rocket. I'm going to assume that you know how to get to Minmus, and understand basic orbital maneuvers. Once you get there, you'll have to land at a specific spot on the surface: [spoiler=] It's where the orbit path intersects the ground, on the retrograde side. If you manage to land intact, give yourself a cookie because the hardest part is behind you. Step 2 - Launch Operating the EKRS is fairly straightforward, but it's a bit fiddly. First you must prepare the system by disabling fuel flow on all three fuel tanks and activating the upward facing engines. Next, press the zero key to extend the 'masts' and 1 to retract the first mast again (2-4 will retract the others). 5 and 6 will rotate the tops of the masts. Align the first decoupler with the large engine. Now stand the Kerbal to be rescued on top of the small rocket engine. Quicksave at this point, because there is a very good chance that something will go wrong. To launch, throttle to 100%, reactivate one of the fuel tanks (not the one farthest from the crew pod, it won't feed the large engine), hit the space bar and immediately press 'x', as quickly as you can. Switch to the Kerbal before he gets too far away, and try to find the decoupler flying somewhere below you. Step 3 - Freefall Use the EVA pack to catch up with the decoupler. Once you match speeds with it, briefly timewarp to stop its rotation (try to have it horizontal). Grab the ladder and check your orbit in the map view. Unless you are incredibly lucky you be headed toward a close fly-by or an impact trajectory. Hop off the ladder and push up or down to adjust (this is the second hardest part). Try to get the periapsis between 29km and 34km - I think the sweet spot is about 30km. When the orbit is correctly tuned, let go of the ladder and timewarp toward Kerbin. When you start to drift away from the ladder, exit timewarp, grab and let go of the ladder, warp again, repeat. If you drift into the decoupler, wait until you pass through it before coming out of timewarp (watch the end of the video to see why). Step 4 - Re-entry Hold on tight. This craft requires the Damned Robotics mod: [thread]9675[/thread] * Up to 25% survival rates This was the first working design of the EKRS. It's all stock, easy to use, and it comes with a pre-built launch vehicle. Unfortunately it has only a single shot, but if you'd just like to try blasting a Kerbal to salvation, without the hassle of the full size EKRS, you could try this.

I find using the avionics package instead of the regular ASAS helps a lot with control. It will keep the craft stable, but still allow you to turn.

There was a very similar challenge a while back. http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/forum/showthread.php/15464-Heaviest-payload-into-Orbit-via-a-fully-reusable-craft/page2 Can I use my entry to that for this challenge?

Roughly 3770km. Nice plane, too.

This is a light transport ship?

Here's my entry, the Jackal: I wasn't able to land on the pad, but I think it's do-able. I might try later. 19 seconds later, still fairly stable (it flipped over after eight more seconds). Not quite a hover, but pretty close. I'm not sure if this is what you meant, it seems too easy. I don't know how to prove that it's capable of landing vertically other than what's shown in these screenshots (when landing on water, even a small amount of forward motion destroys the plane). Total Mass: 25.72 tons Fuel consumption, all engines running: 1.7 L/s

Eremus actually sounds perfect. I like that idea.

I've added the .craft file for the shuttle.