Speeding Mullet

Oops - Done Also suggestions always welcome. Can't guarantee they aren't already on my long list or will make it to be actual missions but of course feel free! SM

This sounds like a good interim compromise. After reading this I thought about making the challenge that you have to land the inigma 42t fuel pod that you had previously placed in orbit. Do you think that would be too difficult? I've seen one or two people land it in the old challenge successfully I'm pretty sure. It would also standardize the challenge somewhat instead of people developing differing payloads. Should I put that mission in to play then I might punt the asteroid landing challenge to after the visit another SOI challenge as it's probably more difficult to land an asteroid than visit another planets SOI.... I absolutely love the detail on this shuttle. It's proportions look "right" and the body kit job you've done on the front is a really nice touch too! Lucky Val is an expert in space walks otherwise you would have been in hot water! 1672.92km sets the new benchmark for stock altitude as well so I will update the leader-board and you can wear your badge with pride, and as always - Funk. Wow! Sheloly Kerman would have a tear in his eye seeing this station. Well managed flights the lot of them and nice progression from way overshooting to absolutely nailing the landing. That's pretty much precisely why I went for the Buran design with atmo's. I can never get that re-entry right! Kolumbia does the job again - well done and here's your badge! Really need to get moving with the next mission now as there's a couple of you at the starting line! Once again a very funky mission! Every time I see more pictures I spot more detail on the shuttle it's quite awesome! On to the HST mission next for you - It's a really good one so enjoy! Here's your badge: Nice idea with the mission suggestion - I'll certainly consider it - I've got a bit of a long list going now so I'm hoping that I'll be able to develop 5 or 10 more missions for this challenge in the future. The one's we have are all centered around Kerbin SOI but I think we have an opportunity to prove that shuttles are more worthy than people think they are. Jool 5 in a shuttle anyone SM

Banned for ruining the banning flow between cubinator and Andem

I think the bug persists, but I haven't investigated it, I'll just wait for them to update at this point. Although it's a more realistic prospect in weight terms I guess it's not that conducive to landing something, unless you are going for this kinda 85t potato landing Yep, I think the pet potato that I landed was a mere 0.22484t once I'd sucked out the ore, and even that didn't fit into the cargo bay. Tweakscale monstrosity shuttle anyone? If it looks like this bug is interfering for a few people then what I might do is try and rush out the STS-10 mission and swap them around, or think of something else which is "interim" level so you can keep entering the challenge. It's got to be a quality mission though as I don't want to let down the flavor of the challenge so far. SM

Banned because why not?

And I've been tinkering with using it. Love it. It's one of those detail things that makes you go "Ah that's just what I wanted". @samstarman5 The thing that kills me with heat glow is how on re-entry it will shade one part of your craft and leave the other bits. I know heat is part specific but it would be great to see some bleed across parts instead of block part heat. Now to not address your point, I'm not sure what I can add that wouldn't be classed as a terrible idea so I will defer to others ideas and quietly read them SM

Ah yes procrastination on a KSP level - I am also guilty at times! Nice work on the rescue mission. A lot of people don't get their Shuttles this far so it's good to see you progressing through to become part of an increasingly rare group. I've also found high inclination re-entries extremely difficult compared to normal ones. Perhaps someone can explain why? I found the Space station mission to be one of my favorites and I really got it into it as you can see here with some thorough detail. Won't be long and you'll be landing an asteroid, which reminds me I need to get STS-10 up and running. I've been back to the drawing board a few times on it so far. Anyway I digress, here is your well earned badge: Also I see you haven't done the Bonus Fuel Pod mission for the Flight Director badge. There's another single mission you can do if you run into writers block designing your space station SM

...Was actually built in the late 60's out of prefab concrete slabs This railway station...

Oh yes, derp how did I miss that 5th pick. I was literally going through the album one by one viewing full resolution. Must have looked right at it! Glad you are enjoying yourself so far - It just get's better from here in my opinion. The missions become much more fluid and give you increasing amount of input as to how you achieve them. Look forward to seeing your entries, and here are your very well earned badges! SM

Banned for using my Beriev Be-200ChS Goliath Seaplane

Thanks Danny, pleased with this one! Haha awesome, your BZT Speeder looks way better than the afterthought I included in the download! Absolutely go for it! I put it in the craft aesthetics thread also Thanks same to you! That's quite the dinky Beriev you have there . Luck for me comes into it, but also hours of tinkering. My ratio of failed designs to workable ones is terrible, but when I hook into it I really produce the goods. Think I forgot to mention in the thread that the plane has a rudder at the back. The little bit that sticks out from the bottom of the tailplane you can enable it and bingo you can turn quickly on water SM

Another nice couple of missions there, barring the, ahem, slightly unorthodox re-entry! Just so I award you the right badges - I assume you made use of the spin stabilization for STS-2, and for STS-3 I'm pretty sure you launched right in to the 25-30 degree inclination, but I couldn't see any "proof" of inclination unless I missed something? Anyway, you've certainly earned your badges, just want to be right as to Pilot vs Commander for you Hi Kit AKA Paranoid Shark welcome to the challenge! I'm not sure if you'd noted (or had previously certified under one of the two former challenges) but rule 8 states: "Missions must be completed in the logical order unless you are certified from either STS v1 or v2 challenges to the relevant level". If you haven't certified then you will also need to fly STS-1 first which is essentially an empty shuttle mission (unless you go for bonus fuel pod mission). If you are worried about the funds being tight then why not play this out in sandbox? However, If you are keen to integrate this into your career mode then by all means launch some alternate ComSats. Just remember that for the Commander Rank you will need to have spin stabilisation built into your design Nice thanks for sharing! Remember people you can go for the Astronaut badge by using someone else's shuttle for a mission if you are badge hungry This reminds me I need to update my own Buran release thread. Let's see if we can get both of them top of page one just before SCF is written Nice work Alchemist! SM P.S. @ZooNamedGames I haven't forgotten about you. May well be receiving a mission request when I get round to it!

2/10, you have a signature that "might" be updated soon which I'm sure will elevate your score

Ah yes, I see you got up to the heady heights of 2.7 frames per second at one point. Is that as a result of recording, or is it always that taxing on your computer? I absolutely love the Saturn Shuttle. the more I look at it the more I see it's definitely worthy of the Skunkworks badge. That thing is a total beast! Great deployment of the payload and considering your fps a nicely executed mission. Lol'd when you deployed the drag chute at 10m/s haha! Totally not going to hold out on you, here's your badge! SM

LOL at the exploding aircraft carrier. That's an absolute monster! Congrats to all that were included. I'll have to remember that it's Australia time (Sydney here) for next week - I just released a hopeful craft but alas, next time! SM

@EVA_Reentry/Strangelove II asked me to release this craft file so I thought I would create a thread in here for it as I am actually rather fond of the creation. It started with knocking out a few much smaller sea planes based around Mk1 and Mk2 components, but the Mk3 seaplane always evaded me until one day trawling the web I found the Beriev Be-200ChS amphibious plane and decided to have a crack. OK so it's not exactly the same (pure stock) but I think it serves as a reasonable replica, and it is absolutely thoroughly functional in game. The Beriev Be-200ChS Goliath features room for crew and 16 passengers, with ample fuel for long range flying. The engines are mounted above and behind the wings to prevent massive water intake into the turbines, but also to prevent damage to the engines on landing. As a result, and as long as you are careful, you can land the Beriev at atrociously high speed. It's equally at home, however, gliding in and landing as softly as you like. Forgot hitting the water and slamming to an immediate stop here too - the clever hull design makes for a landing as if you were on tarmac. Once you've deployed the airbrakes (double as water brakes ) you can open the cargo bay and if required transfer fuel through the ballast tanks to flood the wet bay, allowing for use of the included personal water craft (Beware is liable to take off) which is very happy undocking and redocking to move to another location. Once you've finished with the water craft simply re-dock, drain the ballast tanks and throttle up the Goliaths. You'll soon hit your water takeoff speed of around 70m/s and cruise into the air when you pull back on the stick. The landing gear also allows you to transfer from water to land and vice versa with ease. Here's a gallery running through some stats: All set up and ready to download on KerbalX - The action groups are already set up too so download it here and have some fun! SM

I'm going to try the stock bug fix this evening and see if it makes a difference and I am assuming it's lack of body lift caused by a bug....No problems with the review by the way, a total pleasure! Welcome to the challenge @michal.don good to see another shuttle being developed. Those SpaceY boosters certainly look to do the job and the shuttle looks nice and clean too! I'm very sure that you have a shuttle capable of more than basic flight there already and I'm not too worried about RCS for your initial entry, but it is a system you should integrate before going further if only for your own sanity. Look forward to seeing more entries from the Kolumbia Here's your badge! SM

Get's malicious intentions barely disguised as positive guidance. Inserts clown shoes

Sure thing! I'll try and update for 1.1.2 and upload when I am back from work for you. Thanks for your interest EDIT: @EVA_Reentry/Strangelove II here you go! SM

Can you dedicate SSM-15 as proof please. These photos are great but I really need to see the mission played out from launch to landing in order to be able to award. I hope you understand What I can do though is award you the Skunkworks badge which doesn't actually require a full mission to have been played out. Due to the unusual nature of your shuttle design (most that are presented are STS or Buran style shuttles) I believe you deserve this to get you going! I figured it out, or at least the next best thing if this wasn't what actually made it. It's the KVV Mod (There's a showcase here). I just love the way the first payload shakes itself apart from the main tank when it reaches orbit haha! The third landing was a little shaky there I thought you weren't going to spot the throttle was still up! So nice having air breathers on a shuttle it makes a huge difference imho, not that you need it as your shuttle de-orbits beautifully every time! Another great video to accompany my home from work cup of tea there Alchemist and thoroughly worthy of the mission badge. Here you are, Maxvy and Rodon obviously are very skilled pilots: Ahhh ok. I'll check our the Stock Bug Fix. Pretty sure it's on CKAN already. Thanks! SM

It certainly fits within the defined parameters of a shuttle as per page one of the thread and what a thing that would have been to see launch IRL had it made it!!. I'm sorely tempted to award you STS Commander - Rank 1 but I've had a look through all the pages of your thread and while you have clearly run a good few successful missions I have to apply rule six to keep things fair: "All missions require either an Imgur album showing each stage of the flight, or a continuous (1 take only) video showing all stages of the flight". Unless I've missed something glaringly obvious I'll have to ask if you can upload a gallery of one of your flights to orbit and back I will award you at the relevant level, and also remind me which mod it is that does the blueprint style pictures if you would be so kind? Hope to see your maiden entry soon SM

It is interesting, very interesting and you are tempted. There are loads of helpful people on this thread that have gone through the Shuttle development fail cycle. We'll be able to help out with pointers and advice if you want to get involved . You could also think about borrowing someone else's shuttle and compete for the Astronaut badge as a starting point if you like. Happy to share my Buran if you wanted... SM

Along those lines there's an absolutely incredible amount of challenges to compete in. Personally I'm taking a back seat in playing KSP to run a challenge thread at the moment, but for sure when I think of the next interesting thing I can do I'll dive right back in. A lot of times that I've hit a "what do I do wall" the challenge section has massively helped me get back into the game. SM

Nope - stuffing elephants into fuel tanks... @Alchemist

That's a nice clean mission for sure! Just for interests sake whats the array you have on the top of the tail fin there? Interesting that body lift is missing in 1.1.2, I've been experiencing some issues with aero-braking around planets and stability and was wondering what the culprit was. Possibly this. Hopefully a fix is coming soon! I'm pleased to be able to award you the both the STS Commander - Rank 1 and Flight Director Badges. Please obtain your badges here: EDIT: I've also just updated the scoreboard to reflect the latest missions! SM