Alfondoo

I think a Mun landing would be taking it too far, my favorite moment in this game so far was touching down on the Mun for the first time. I hadn't seen any videos explaining how to do it, it was pure exploration and the greatest feeling of achievement I've had so far in the game. Spend 15 minutes with your colleagues building a very basic rocket with the aim of getting to orbit. Then show them a few pre-made ships (big space stations, rovers, aircraft) maybe finish off by showing something totally ridiculous like boats, submarines, rcs bikes - stuff to capture the imagination. Try to get in a mention of the community surrounding the game as well, it's a big part of what makes KSP what it is.

Continuing my design and development of an Eve escape vehicle based around a staged Kethane Jet. At the moment I can get a 80km x 30km orbit without staging on Kerbin, currently trying to squeeze an orbit out of it without having to stage. This is a few design revisions ago, currently it's sitting in my SPH with an indicated 7300m/s dv.

Microlite

The rocket in the 2nd picture is hands down the best design I've seen on these forums so far. Well done!

I literally just posted this in another thread about getting off eve in the general discussion. It can get to a 150km orbit around Kerbin without firing the jets up at all (dropping them before takeoff). With the jets it takes me all the way out to that distance with 2km of delta/v left in the command pod/winglet stage. EDIT: Just in case of "pics or it didn't happen" Just after decoupling and about to finish up -

I know we're not talking mods here but after taking a kethane bypass turbine jet to Eve I've always been interested in trying to do it space plane style (albeit dropping everything that would make it a plane by the time you exit the atmosphere). Multiple stages, all balanced in flight. Just for my amusement and maybe some inspiration for others of here - Currently I can get to 150km Kerbin orbit without using the keth jets. If I use the jets on Kerbin I can get to orbit with 2km delta/v in the final command pod/winglet stage. Totally sure it's doable (maybe not this design but I'm getting there). Anybody else tried? ignore the file name this was kinda what the "SSTO" turned into after extensive, frustrating testing

A screenshot of your orbit would be helpful I think.

Quick mission to the Mun, hadn't been to see the new terrain yet

I'm not saying the community is in the right, far from it. I just feel like the developers brought it upon themselves somewhat...

This. I can understand peoples frustration but ultimately their team should never have indicated a release date that was so obviously not going to happen. Now it just feels like they're stringing people along.

my new mini SSTO, the Gnat. Takes off at 30m/s, climbs almost vertically to 12km and builds speed to 30km before engaging it's thrusters.

This + Terraforming

My latest ambition to build a station with a SSTO jet. Procedural Wings and Kspx are the mods. Tested payload upto 18t (double grey tank) Link to album: http://imgur.com/a/pEOfa#0

Not quite in the same league as some have already posted but here are a couple of my designs so far. This one used 3 Turbo fans, 3 Lv909s for orbit achievement and 1 Nerva for everything else. And this one is simply pretty interesting to look at.

I've never let one re-enter...anywhere. All of the tugs and interplanetary drives I've created have so far stayed in space ready to be re-used.

You'd find it really difficult to hit something at a decent velocity if you were aiming for it. The closest I've come to orbital collision was when I was going of for a rendezvous and while finishing up my orbit the craft I was aiming for came flying up behind me at some silly 600m/s. Had to quickly move over to let it past (big station). Best rendezvous I've managed as I matched my velocity 2km away from target!

I wonder if you're simply going too fast? You're using FAR and they look like mighty powerful rockets for whats sitting on top of them. Try to keep the speeds down to 250m/s below 10,000m and below 1000m/s (ish) in the next upper atmosphere. Air resistance will build up if you go faster and any slight deviation from your velocity vector will be uncontrollable.

When using more than one engine stack the jets vertically instead of horizontally you'll get a pitch error rather than a spin, usually easier to control.

I'll hold off then till mods are decided upon.

It still has 20% less thrust than a nuke engine and the 40 electric/sec making it difficult to incorporate into designs. I think all these trade off against one another to the point where I still can't justify using the ion engine for interplanetary stuff over the nuke. Didn't use it at all before because it simply wasn't balanced enough to be useful - making the game more fun. Why don't you do the same and we'll race to get this challenge done? or better yet as we've got a bit of wiggle room, build something epic.

The engine I'm using isn't magical. I carefully balanced it to be in line with the large nuclear engine from KSPX. It's slightly lighter but once you've added solar panels to make it work it's the same. I'm only doing it because I feel it would be a good test of this craft I've built. If you wanna do it with a magical engine go ahead, as long as you take pics It's in the spirit of KSP imo

Here she is in her current form. I'll be re-designing it tonight to take replaceable drop tanks.

I reckon if you're just missing orbit that you're intakes are killing it. Try closing them with a hotkey just before flameout and if you're still missing orbit stick a few more rcs thrusters on it and finish it off with those.

So I've been making an SSTO using a slightly tweaked version of the large hybrid Ion engine included in the Hybrid Electric Pack. I tweaked the power output of the large engine to be more in line balance wise with the large nuclear engine out of KSPX pack. So the power is now 120, after adding all the solar stuff to bring the electric requirement up I'm seeing similar dV's to the nuclear engines. My question is - can I use this to try the challenge? I haven't actually tested on Eve yet but I can get into LKO with a shred of fuel left. If I'm allowed to use it for the challenge I'm going to re-design it with Superseaslug's idea, using replaceable drop-tanks.

Gilrod Kerman has been taken to Eeloo, Pol and Duna and returned from every mission. Jeb has since been allocated a mission control position when a "serious" mission is required, it's been a long time since he bought a rocket home in one piece.