Exothermos

Some perspective is in order. Absolutely nothing about how SSTO space planes work in KSP is realistic. Nothing. Every SSTO design one can make is impossible, and so are most "parasite" air launch designs. I used to get bent out of shape by intake spamming too until I realized that it really is just a method of making clean SSTO designs that work and actually DO something. If you want to stay "realistic" (which is laughable in this game anyway) you are stuck with one intake per engine. Then you have to pack so much rocket fuel into the thing that it really is just a rocket that you man-handle up to vertical after takeoff. Every other design takes huge liberties with reality. Even with modern technology an SSTO is incredibly hard. That's why we aren't all whisked away on our 1 hour suborbital flight across the Atlantic with a martini in hand. I limit myself to what I can design in the SPH or VAB without dev tools. Then I try to live with the fact that this game about green cartoon space men is not a realistic simulator, and have fun instead.

Wow, that huge thing was your first SSTO to orbit? When you set goals, you don't achieve them, you annihilate them! I've been plugging along with SSTOs with singular obsession, as usual. All my other missions to Duna, the Mun, and Laythe are completely ignored. It has been fruitful though. My tribute to the Valkyrie in SSTO form is complete, and ready for Download (click my signature). I have some more stuff in the pipeline as well. Some need a lot of work, others just need me to stop procrastinating and finish the last 5% before I can share. This is a larger version of my previous Space Bus SSTO, the Ardent. It carries 10 little green men. I'm still messing with tail configurations. This one is big because it is meant to carry stuff to Duna. What sort of stuff? Rover stuff! And whatever else will fit in that bay. It pulls a trick to unload. It was built as a sort of proof of concept vehicle, and as such I need to rebuild it from scratch with more care, as things are a little wobbly and wonky and off-center. It gets to space (with heroic efforts from the ASAS and some swearing) and has plenty of DV to get to Duna with some serious aerobreaking at the end. It isn't really meant as ship that can take off from Kerban, go to Duna, and come back unsupported ala pa1983's amazing stuff. It needs refueling after achieving each SSTO maneuver if it is to have enough DV to get around. Fortunately I have the Logistics in place for that contingency, and the added complexity of the mission saves complexity and part count in the vehicle. The third is another pretty, but useless SSTO built to the "wave riding" concept of most hypersonic vehicles. The idea is that shockwaves compress under the vehicle and provide lift. Most modern Military fighters actually use this concept to some degree too. So this was just a fun building exercise. The final thing is actually NOT an SSTO. YET! I am so close and this thing is driving me up the wall so I am taking a break. It is a vehicle in the vein of a Star Trek Shuttlecraft. It is supposed to be a small 3 person Vertical takeoff SSTO with Cargo bay (in this case it just has chairs for now) capable of docking to a Mothership or space station. I've had one problem after the next with this thing and everytime I fix a minor issue I make 2 more major ones. So, I'll put it into the corner and I throw disappointed and accusatory looks at it until I can figure it out. Here is a teaser Image.

Aurora SSTO added to the Original Post! Here is the Tiny SSTO pack Post for safe keeping: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Exo's Tiny SSTO Pack! Are you tired of lugging all that extra weight to orbit? Who needs superfluous things like wing surfaces? Why can't they just put it all into a smaller package? They Have! I present Miniaturized SSTOs! Their small size makes their performance pretty incredible. This isn't reentry... The results are pretty appealing. And ridiculous. With the "Tiny Tot", I believe this might be the smallest footprint for an SSTO (with a cockpit part) that the game will currently allow. (lets see those tiny chair SSTOs!) Beyond just an exercise in absurdity, the result is a super tiny shuttlecraft that can be carried as a payload up to orbit IN ANOTHER SSTO. I have already carried one with my "Ajax" lifter. A few of the other designs would be well suited to being Laythe SSTO runabouts for a larger colony ship. Most would work for the task, but I am tired of tinkering with them, so I'll let you figure out where to put the RCS and Docking ports on any that don't have it, if you so desire. All designs are studies in the exploit of clipping (SPH only, no file tinkering or whatever) and intake spamming so avoid if that bunches your undies. The rest of us can have all the fun. DOWNLOAD Mini SSTO Pack (8 ships) (.rar file) Individual Ships: Tiny Tot Mighty Mite Maxi Mite Teeny Wingy Itty Bitty Brute The Mouse Dinky Drone Dinky Delta

I did something similar with this design that I posted over on the heavy lifters thread. http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/25701-Post-your-heavy-lifters%21?p=592686&viewfull=1#post592686 It works well. It was a fun experiment at least. I kept my engines at the bottom to alleviate a lot of those problems you are having.

My current toy. It'll be ready for release soon.

I know I'm late to the game on this one, but I just want to heap praise on your mk3 fuselage pack and your fantastic cockpits! These parts (with some niggling details polished out) should be stock. I know that c7 is doing an art pass on spaceplane parts soonish, but if they don't add your parts, or their equivalents, they are missing the boat. Great Job!

Because if you put the wheels at the end of the fuselage, they will be very far away from the center of mass of the ship. It's a classic lever-arm concept like a seesaw. Your rear wheels are the fulcrum of the lever arm, like the center of a seesaw. If you move the fulcrum (rear wheels) too far backward, it's like making one side of the seesaw really short, meaning that you need a huge amount of force to lift the weight on the long side (everything forward of the rear wheels). Make a quick plane ( or play with the stock ones) to test what I mean. Try it with the wheels right behind the CoM, and try it with the wheels all the way at the back.

Hey, nice payload bay! What parts pack is that?

Here is my Lifter for my LKO gas stations. It is a center drop tank design. It definitely isn't as efficient as a Asparagus lifter, but it is over the top and fun. By 4000m both center tanks have been dropped. Gravity turn and burning for apoapsis is done with the main stage. Orbital insertion and maneuvering with the upper stage.

OK, so I think some spaceplane basics are in order here. If the entirety of that fuselage is a full kethane tank, you are going to need a LOT more wing surfaces, and a ton more thrust. Is this supposed to lift off of Kerban or Duna or Laythe? If it's kerban you need a huge wing. Easily 5x what I see there, and you will need about 8x jets (or more). If it is Duna, you need another set of aerospikes and a similar large wing. I'm going to do a build with stock parts that mimic the size of your ship here, but this is not intended to be a craft that will actually work. Merely it is to illustrate building techniques and the scale at which you must think. Take everything off of your plane except the fuselage you want to lift. Try to arrange your parts so that the Center of Mass Icon is close to the center of your Refillable Kethane tank. The tank is your payload, and the payload should always be at the center of mass. Use a structural part (like the fuselage) to start tacking engines on. Do your self a favor and keep things simple for now, only add engines dead center on the horizontal plane, near the back (use snap symmetry). Now it's time to add fuel for your engines. Put the tanks on the horizontal as well, except this time make sure they are dead centered on your Center of Mass. Run Fuel lines from your tanks to the engines. Strut the contraption up. Now you need lift. Lots of it. The easiest way on a large fuselage like that is to go for a Biplane style wing. Turn your center of lift Icon on, turn off snap symmetry and start adding wing structural panels to the fuselage above your fuel tanks. I came up with this design. Do what you feel like. The result should be a large wing with a Center of Lift directly behind the CoM. Now flip everything over and use alt-click to copy your top wing and paste it on the bottom. Now you have a wing that might be big enough. Maybe. Strut everything together. Add your landing gear. Some up front and the rear gear should be just behind the center of mass, not way at the end of the fuselage. Add some intakes (except for duna, obviously). The more you have, the the better. Test it! Did I mention to strut things up?

Now that is some outside-of-the-box design there. Great Job. Downloaded.

What is that? A jungle gym fireball? What the heck are we looking at there? It certainly has me intrigued.

Absolutely. Just link it here in this thread when you are done.

You totally don't need mechjeb. Fly with ASAS on at all times if you are struggling, and use the keyboard even. It's a standard air-hogging ship so the flight profile matches, but here are the specifics for the Tiny Tot: 1) take off at 1/3 throttle, rotate at 80 m/s 2) climb out at full throttle and 60 degrees 3) at 12 to 15 km slowly start pitching down to 5 degrees. Your acceleration plateau is at 28 to 32 km. 4) start slowly easing off the the throttle as the engines start to bog (listen for it) once you have reached 1800 m/s or more you can pitch up to 45 degrees and hit the rocket (2). 5) Let your jet flame out, turn it off, hit (3) to close some intakes. Burn at 45 degrees or more (I often do 60) to achieve an apoapsis of at least 72. With that achieved, turn everything off and coast up. 6) near your apoapsis begin your circularizing burn. SPACE. So that's the simple flight profile. I've achieved maximum fuel conservation by actually descending down to 28 km at very high speed then angling back up to 45 degrees from there. It sort of lobs you out into space. I've obtained a 90 km apoapsis with this technique without burning rocket fuel. You can save it for the circularizing burn! And yes, KissSh0t, you certainly can circularize an orbit while in the atmosphere . Thanks for the suggestion, it was fun.

Thanks! I'm really glad people like my stuff. Now if only I could pull my self away from my SSTO obsession. I'm trying! I delivered the Stock Rover and Skycrane to Duna. There were problems. I forgot to put a command module on the orbiter section so it went inert as soon as I separated after my reentry burn. How could I forget that? It was supposed to burn it's self back to orbit. Oh well, I'll deliver the payload. This is seconds before disaster. I dropped the heat shield, waited until I was sure the crane would have enough fuel to deliver the rover to the ground, separated from the parachute "Lid" and throttled-up. But apparently I had over-estimated the gravity on Duna and I immediately launched the whole contraption back up into the parachute lid, impacting without damage, but rotating the skycrane just enough to be unrecoverable. Sorry I don't have pics. I was busy. And then I logged off in a huff after. Lessons learned: 1) I don't plan well. 2) The mountain ranges on Duna are really a challenge for Parachute based landings. 3) The solution to the whole thing is... AN SSTO! (probably not)

Ridiculously tiny SSTOs added to the OP! Here is the older Argo post for Posterity (get it? That's high comedy there). ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ You know what the world needs? MORE SSTOs! These will probably be my last serious SSTOs for a little while as I have a mission to Duna starting to pique my interest. But I always seem to go back to them, so I could be full of it. XD The first submission is one I have been working on for a long while. It is a 19 kerbal space bus. Why do you need a 19 man space bus? I don't know. But, whatevah, I do what I want. Maybe your space station has had the same poor souls in it since 0.18. Mine did, but then I used my Argo Space Bus to relieve them! And how! It's big, heavy, and well over 300 parts so it is a little hairy trying to dock at a space station if the station its self is taxing your computer. I had no problems docking to my orbiting fuel depots however. Check out the action groupings to see what your options are. In general, one should fly this like any larger, airhogging nuclear wessel. Take off on all jets, once at 25k or so you will need to start dropping sets of jets with the action groups. at 33 or 34k you will need to fire up the nukes. Once your speed plateaus, fire up the aerospike for a kick in the pants up into orbit. Maneuver in space with the nukes, obviously. Argo Space Bus DOWNLOAD The other craft on offer is a pure fire-breathing hotrod sort of thing. It has no payload or passengers, it just hustles one kerbal up to orbit. I haven't seen a similar design on these forums so I figured I'd share. Flight profile is similar to the above, just much more expedient. Once at 28k or so shut down all but the center jet and fire up the nukes when it starts bogging. Rotate up to 75 degrees and run the jet until it flames out. Space! Accel SSTO DOWNLOAD

I like some of the Data and telemetry that Mechjeb provides, especially regarding planetary transfers and orbital details. I feel that the stock game is sorely lacking in that department. All the active autopilot stuff Mechjeb does should remain as Mod-only territory, however.

Hmm so essentially you can think of it as the center most fuel tank is the bottom, and you set it up so that fuel flows down hill, and your jets pull from that tank.

Sure, why not! Your design goals are pretty interesting. I already have a design in mind that should meet all the criteria. Now I just need a few hours to play KSP to actually assemble it. @ pa1983: That plane is full of surprises! I just watched the video without reading your build post. "Oh hay! Vertical rockets! Man, that front end is wobbly on landing, I wonder why...oh wow."

OK... so I might be going overboard on the small SSTO thing. They are just so dumb, useless, and fun. I am cracking up half the time I am flying these things. Things started pretty normally with this guy: It's a single Jet, single Poodle, "magic clippy-job". Orbit with no problems. Then , hey, lets switch that adapter around and go for a.. well, whatever this is: I think it is Mickey Mouse's Ride. But you know what? That heavy cockpit part is really holding us back, man. Let's ditch it: Go directly to... Ludicrous Speed! Have to pop those solar panels to keep that computer charged. The ship is pretty surprised by the whole thing. The thing is everyone likes a manned space program. It's just that I didn't feel like I really embraced the magic (cheating) of parts clipping. So lets go with this: Yes, really. Thats the whole thing: Yes, it is a fully functional SSTO. No, you should not fly it without the awesome new ASAS. Ever. I will be releasing all of these as an overly-tiny SSTO (OTSSTO?) Pack after I have tinkered with them a little more.

I was fooling around with smaller SSTOs today as I would eventually like to attach a couple to a carrier headed to Laythe. This is the first design. It is a perfectly good SSTO, and works great. It rotates at 25 m/s making vertical landings a breeze. Especially with the new ASAS. But it felt too big, so I resorted to clipping for this: Again it has no trouble getting to orbit with plenty to spare, even with a poodle. But we can go even smaller. Like a bat outa hell. Orbit with only 1 jetfuel can and a FL-T200 with 90 units of Rocket Fuel? No problem. With 1/3 tank left even! I love this game...

It's a little thing, but yeah it would be cool.

Seconded. Just a simple gamma slider.

Wow, some of these ships are insane! This is my first manned Duna mission ship. It's a Tug & pusher hybrid. Everything to the left of the Docking Sr. ports is the lander / heat shield assembly. It will also return to Kerbin. Everything to the right will stay in orbit as a space station. So I suppose it doesnt fit the billing of this thread exactly, But it is the closest I've gotten. I'll try to post with a trip report this weekend. /crosses fingers.

19 kerbals to any sub 200km orbit and back. 6 Kerbals to any sub 150km orbit. Both fully stock. Cinocal, thats one of the best looking b9 creations I've seen. Nice.