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hm... has been done, record stands at something like Mach 7 at 1000m with an airbreather.

yep, anything goes, but the bottom and the top of the platform must be at least the height of the VAB high deck and be physically connected

The President's coming on an inspection tour, and the VAB is filthy! We need all hands on deck to build a gondola or something we can use to polish the corrugated rust wall panels. THE CHALLENGE: Build and demonstrate a rover-mounted cherrypicker platform or ladder system capable of reaching the VAB roof with one Kerbal, from any point on the ground around the VAB. THE RULES: - Design challenge, any structural part valid - Platform base must be on the ground. - Platform deck must be at least level with the VAB roof deck (the high one with the helipads) when deployed, but not necessarily with the helipads. Extra kudos for a platform with a reachover deck that can reach the helipads. - Extra extra kudos for a platform that can *move* with the deck extended. - OK, I'm relaxing the "rover mounted" stipulation for this one: you can build a scaffold but it *must* be built by a Kerbal.

Jeb's wife works in the technical department - she writes the manuals.

The Kerbania State Circus is in need of a new Kerbal Cannonball act since the previous one... still hasn't landed yet. THE CHALLENGE: Fire a Kerbal from one end of the runway (ie behind the "09" marker where you start) to hit a target at the other end of the runway (ie behind the "27" end marker) THE RULES: - Target shall consist of a probe core, a horizontal panel 4x4m in dimension and utilising electric wheels to move it to its parking spot. All parts should be available in stock inventory. - Distance between the Kerbal launch point and the centre of the target shall be exactly 2.5km. Essentially, this puts the target centre 13m from the East end of the runway. - Launcher shall be static (no wheels or skids) and fire the Kerbal mass in a manner akin to a cannon or catapult. No running starts. - NO CHUTES. - Kerbal shall have no propulsion, lift or control surface assistance throughout the ballistic phase of flight. Kerbal may be attached to an inert mass to aid in launch, however this must offer no aid in flight. - Any structural part valid. - No violating the laws of physics. Et Cetera. - No limit to the number of attempts. Easiest way to prove separate attempts on multiple hits is to use Kerbals with different names! SCORING: Kerbal collisions with target vehicle panels shall count as a hit (F3 reporting after impact), else a miss. Hit=1pt (Challenger's Note: plenty of close ones here using a trebuchet, nothing closer than 275m tho. Will post pic of my first hit. If I can manage one!)

space for my helicopter drop...

1. Make lander 2. Land on mun 3. Hop (lift off and land immediately somewhere down range) 4 times per "day" (is that every 6 hours, or Kerbin Day, or every 24 hours, a solar day, or every (however long a Munar day is)? Or do you mean, literally a "day" as in this challenge lasts three months??) 4. Claim the "Hard" prize.

Referring to the engine tests performed in the Thrust KSC Land Speed Challenge from a few months ago, yes - at least horizontally, in terms of TWR. Efficiency definitely leaves something to be desired; I wouldn't mind seeing Luvodicus come up with an Ant-sized super nuclear engine with similar TWR and the legendary Luvodicus fuel efficiency of the (slightly OP) Super engines, or even the Poseidon's Revenge scaled down to Ant. That would almost certainly up the part count on my launchers, which invariably employ at least one Super Atomic (most often a cluster of 8 of them), on the heavier lifts 12 if there's room or 8 and a Poseidon's Revenge.

doesn't the fact that it was a ballistic insertion count?? :\

did you do it at 1000m?

posting a challenge does not REQUIRE that I do it first, only that I demonstrate that it's POSSIBLE. Math does that, and the hardware I have DEMONSTRATED is more than capable of completing the challenge EVEN IF I DON'T ACTUALLY DO IT AND POST A TEN HOUR VIDEO.

there's a four minute reserve in the battery on my demo flyer and because you're flying EAST TO WEST you're chasing the sun, which means that you get to meet the planet coming towards you. If you make 350m/s you're doing it in less than three hours! Even if you don't, you've got four, maybe five or even six hours of sunlight (at 175m/s) to make the flight. I'm gonna do it in less than three with the simple addition of one engine and a fairly high cruise altitude.

because the TWR of ions SUCK. Fancy a three day flight?

Two part challenge, you will require Firespitter electric propellers/rotors for both parts, solar panels wherever you can get them, RTG generators if you like, and thermal (nuclear) generators from KSPInterstellar, or don't bother! Challenge One: Build and fly a solar powered transglobal light aircraft with seating capacity for one Kerbal. Scoring is for shortest flight time circumnavigating EAST TO WEST at the equator (ie heading 270, or retrograde) and making a SAFE landing at KSC. Time is WHEELS UP to the moment the aircraft comes to a STOP. Here's my proven Solar Flyer on a demo flight and landing: Challenge Two: Build and launch a platform capable of lifting no less than sixteen Kerbals in Hitchhiker Storage Containers to an altitude of not less than 6,500m to a hover over any point on the planet. Bonus for landing on top of any building either on the Island or at Inland KSC. For the definition of "hover", read: surface speed less than 5m/s. This challenge is not scored on points (though I might later on throw in a scoreboard for highest speed achieved in level flight at 500m), it's scored on "Dahell is that and how is it flying!?" Usual physics rules apply, any structural part valid. ONLY propulsion permitted is electric propellers and rotors from eg Firespitter. No rockets, RCS, SRBs, jets, aerospikes, ion engines, alcubierre drives... If you find any other purely electric propulsion you think I might like, please feel free to point it out! (I'd have screenies of the demo ship for this one but my KSP just crashed when I f1'd it and it didn't capture )

ooh, loving the Su-37 "Berkut" you've got there... if you've ever flown one of those in FS, with proper flight controllers (I mean, throttles an' all, not some twenty Dollar stick), you'll probably appreciate why I love the plane so much... although, the Russian model has a twin vertical stabiliser... that said, have a look at this: The Berkut. Goes very high and ridiculously fast, and still manages to spin on a dime. Against this: The SAAB SA-43 "Hammerhead" endo-exo-atmospheric attack jet from "Space: Above And Beyond" Looks familiar? (The Hammerhead was designed first, apparently only one full-sized static mockup was ever built (from cardboard and steel and landing gear scrounged off a Cessna) but I do keep finding snippets claiming that fibreglass mockups were built and shipped open-deck across the Pacific.) (sources: David Tremont, chief model maker for Space: AAB, and various pages across the web) This was one of the first planes I ever tried to build in KSP (many, many moons ago!), might try again now I've got better engines!

no chance at RSS, but I did actually complete my first ever suborbital insertion to polar orbit (perfect 90 degree inclination with no mechjeb on payload! 70x170 orbit tho ) and night landing! All flight manoeuvres were performed totally manually. Even the insertion burn was done manually, after which I immediately had to jump back and retake control of my plane before it reentered the atmosphere. (EDIT: and during my approach I blew up all but four jet engines trying for an atmo start - I was too high! Hence the redeployment of the rockets just for that bit of extra push)

I know you said no spaceplanes, but I want to try a ballistic launch from the bay of my K52a... B9 uberwings, twenty jet engines, 22 intakes, 8m S2 Wide cargo bay. Thing goes suborbital up to over 140km on the first skip!

Possibly an entry, though this is the only screenshot I took, it is in fact an SSTO with a recoverable boost stage (tail landing on boosters, no chutes. Do I get the "We're not sinking, we're CRASHING!" award?) and six claw-equipped cell modules each with its own power supply and radio. Mods: Luvodicus (rockets), KWRocketry (tanks & batteries), Kosmos (mono tanks), MechJeb, KSPInterstellar (heatsinks). Pad weight: forgot, mass mid-transfer orbit: 96.6t. This is an experimental mission to see if I can plant a radially offset claw onto a rock. The answer being yes, if I can manage to do it before the game has another random oops. Probably need to stick moar struts on it as well, those girders do like to flex... (yes, that's Kerbin behind and Mun just off the nose.) All that said, pretty much all my heavy lifts (300-1200t) are SSTOs, wouldn't be too much of a stretch to hook up a probe core to the boosters and have them return to Kerbin once orbit insertion is complete, no guarantees of actually landing at KSC tho...

easily worded challenge: plant a flag on Keverest. (trivia: the relative speed of the Indian and Asian continental plates means that the Himalaya range is "growing" at a rate of two inches per year. This bit of useless information brought to you by Kerbal Kola - the people who also brought you beer milkshakes!)

don't tell him, but all my munitions are made with stock parts (and some KWRocketry SRBs)!

gotta be stayputnik, racking cubes is too easy (I've had 1000+ cubes on one launcher half the height of an SC-4).

that is some mad Kesslering though... but my idea is to "pollute" the most common orbits with retrograde debris which actually causes damage on impact rather than just making orange flamey stuff (like the mess of decouplers on my Baby Kessler II did when I flew the launcher through them on the retro burn - I thought it was dead, the explosions were fantastic, but like the offspring of a phoenix and a giant space cockroach it just came on trucking though. Unscathed.)

John Woo Kerman has repeatedly been in touch with the office and complained about the fact that his missile systems all seem to be one-shot affairs, which seems ridiculous. We agree. THE CHALLENGE: Build and deploy an orbital weapon system consisting of missiles and a manned core. The system should be designed to be reloadable in orbit. Such functionality should be demonstrated. THE RULES: - This is a design challenge. Anything goes except breaking the laws of physics. - The weapon platform must be manned. Any reloading probes should be unmanned. Missiles can ONLY be fired from mounts attached to the platform.

that is nice. Just needs a TOW launcher on the roof.

I'll see your OKTO 2 and raise you a Stayputnik for weight.