McFarnsworth

Call it what you want to call it, as long as we both mean the same thing it's fine by me. 4400m/s seems quite reasonable actually, even less when refueling at Bop or Pol. I might even have a few designs that can already pull that off, or get really close to it anyway. Time to do some tinkering I think.

I did say it was an infinite range plane, so that implies it has mining equipment. That also implies it can get to Minmus in a single stage, so I guess the dV available is sufficient. Taking off on the rapiers and circularizing with the nukes once the oxidizer runs out to get an orbit might work actually. You're probably right when it comes to landing the thing though. Ideally you'd want to burn off the oxidizer first before switching to nuke power but that means you've got high TWR at the start of your descent and pretty much none near the landing so that's not an option. And if you do it the other way around you're wasting a lot of dV with your nukes carrying oxidizer around. And even if you do somehow manage the above, it's assuming you have a fuel depot in Tylo orbit already, which sort of defeats the purpose of doing it with a self sufficient spaceplane in the first place

Question: Anyone think it can be done with a Rapier/Nuke combo? Like you can find on most infinite range SSTO spaceplanes for example.

I built the lowest tech spaceplane that I could. Note that I don't have smaller decouplers, or docking ports, or parts for building a small enough satellite yet.

That's brilliant, I actually hadn't thought of that. I turned mine into a mk1.5 spaceplane. Twice the kerbals, and some actual cargo space.

I haven't started a new career in 1.0.5, might try again once 1.1 is out. For me career mode is only fun when I can complete several complex contracts in one go and have to build some absurd contraptions with low tech parts to overcome the challenges that entails. This does mean I need to contract spam a lot, which the new rep mechanic punishes. I also find the initial grind for science really boring so I'm never too motivated to start a new career. I've had my fun with it, and it taught me how to play without MechJeb again as I started relying on that far too much, but I pretty much only play sandbox now.

Broke the game while testing an ssto This is the finished version. 870dv left when in a 81 x 81 orbit. We really need an mk1 cargo bay of some sort, because this is ultimately a pretty useless ssto. It performs well enough, but there's no practical way to get any sort of cargo into orbit with an mk1 spaceplane. ... and I'm too inept to fit a small satellite in the service bay. Edit: making the satellite aerodynamic is one way to solve the issue of course.

Built in the VAB, I wouldn't have the patience to assemble anything like that in orbit. The torus part of the ship takes up 60 parts + 12 struts

Mine's stock, just mk1 liquid fuel tanks and mk1 airplane passenger modules. And a whole lot of fiddling to get them into a ring shape.

I'll try and give you some specific examples and base my comments on the plane in your first screenshot. - ditch the rearmost air intakes, all of them. They cause massive drag and you don't need them. - replace the front intakes with the shock cone ones, and keep the precoolers. That should give you a very low drag solution to power 6 rapiers. - put the cargo bay where the CoM is, so it doesn't screw up your plane's balance on reentry with an empty bay. - replace (at least) one center lfo + ox tank to a pure liquid fuel one, you're carrying way more oxidizer than you need if you do the ascent right. - remove the fuel lines, rapiers don't need them, and they cause drag. Doing all of the above should get your plane comfortably into orbit. You can probably get away with using only 4 rapier engines even. As for the ascent, depends a bit on the plane but there's actually very little control input needed. Choose a starting angle where the plane will reach a little over 300m/s at an altitude of around 7000m (doesn't nearly have to be accurate, these are just ballpark figures). Once there, pitch down to around 5° - 10°. You'll pick up speed while the planet rolls away from you. (if you start overheating your plane is too powerful or your angle is too shallow) Switch to rocket mode when the speed starts to drop.

One redesign later, and Santa's sleigh can make it into orbit with plenty of fuel to spare. ... and if you're really good or lucky you can even get it back from orbit.

Valentina and Bob, Santa's little helpers.

Speeding through the air, in a six jet open sleigh! Over the sea we go, presents in the bay! Oh what fun it is to fly, screaming all the way! Engine bells, engine bells, engines on my sleigh!

Deorbit a space station It survived much longer and in better condition than I had anticipated.

Threading some very large wires boosters through a very weird space needle.

Alright, I've slightly lowered the partcount, made it cheaper, added mechjeb, put some crew in it, relaunched the whole thing and took screens this time. More updates once I get this thing to Dres.

$522.430

Needed more struts, and more boosters, obviously

Ladies and gentlemen, the KerbalKill 3000! Feeling the heat Even Jeb looks worried The Kraken must be fed with more Kerbals! Minor design flaw, Jeb thinks he can get lucky And he's right Still, 224 dead Kerbals isn't too bad.

I DON'T KNOW!!!

Would something like this be sufficient? It's an orbital station/asteroid grabber and miner attached to a surface mining base with 2 rovers/orbital ferries attached to an infinite range SSTO partially converted into an asteroid grabber and surface scanning satellite. ... And yes, the part count murders my aging pc. Not sure how well or if any of it is going to work, but I've built enough versatility into the whole thing to have options once I get there. I'd like to give Dres some friends by landing asteroids on it, but I have no clue if that's even feasible.

Docking this thing together took entirely too long. Time to go mine some Dresteroids and plonk a base down on Dres.

Sometimes being efficient or beautiful just isn't an option and you just need brute force to put something in orbit.

After being stuck on Duna for a decade or so, he returned to Kerbin and is now happily testing spaceplanes. He'll probably head to Dres soon though.

It seems I either fail completely at something no matter how much I test and try to improve it, or I build something that just works almost perfectly from the first test launch. This time I built an orange tank SSTO. 85km * 85km orbit with plenty of fuel to spare on the very first launch. I just need to swap some liquid fuel tanks for rocket fuel tanks. Might even work with 2 engines less since it went through the sound barrier like it wasn't there. ... or replace 2 rapiers with nukes and ditch the orange tank, ... and add mining equipment, ... and radiators, ... and a lab, ... and a satellite, ... and a lander. Hmmm, seems like I've got another interplanetary SSTO/Mothership coming up.