Radam

Or like newly proposed ULA upper stage, a piston engine with a generator.

Ion has isp of 4200 vs 800 for a nuke. With fuel cells the isp will be in between somewhere and will still have to bring xenon up from kerbin. My take, fuel cells for ion crafts wont be worth it. Unless theres a mod that adds electrolysis. Or whether 400 series batteties will still be massless part...

Also in 1.0 nuke will weigh 3t instead of 2.25t. So it will be even heavier. 120t ship with slow burn at 2m/s2 needs 4 nuclear engines. It takes about 2100m/s dv to dres orbit. So the ship also needs about 30t of fuel which is about one big red tank. Probably your biggest problem is burn time. Injection will take 6 minutes even with 8 nukes, and 12 minutes with 4. Which basically means ypu have to start burning 6 minutes before the node.

This is gonna chande a few things:

Might be relevant:

Wow Rapier has 1200 thrust (thereabouts) at mach 3.7 and 140 at standstill. With 180 in rocket mode.

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/33312-Showcase-SSTO-s%21-Post-your-pictures-here

Kspi ( interstellar) means antimatter reactors, plasma engines and warp drives...

Browse the big SSTO thread a bit and you will find a few. Or http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/115820-Intrepid-Daring-Shuttle-looking-space-trucks-Updated-with-a-new-wing-and-less-parts%21

Damn, that wing, such a mess.

Im not a great pilot, but somehow this thing is stable enough untill I switch to mechjeb ascent at 8km, limiting the aoa... Thing about the nuke is that while it is 2.5t, the whole craft is still only 33t dry without cargo. I had it lit up when I was turning on the rapiers at 1400ms (really a great ascent) and took a long way to orbit. I turned rapiers off a few times. Basically its for orbital maneuvers. Less fuel use for when you have to intercept a station. I might just take that lander can out as it doesnt do anything. Then it will be 98 parts total. As for adjusting wing position. One part is usefull, but then again you have to use more struts. I only have to move 5 parts and with the offset tool its easy. Now I have to learn to land with FAR...

I made it to orbit with a full orange tank inside mk3 large cargo bay with FAR aerodynamics! Best thing, its 100 parts stock! Well 99 if you dont count mechjeb module... imgur link: https://imgur.com/a/C6qVw Now lets see if it flies in 1.0.

Thats so realistic looking craft that I think they just threw all the old parts into a dumpster. Btw, heres a "about 100 part" SSTO with ample amount of part clipping on the engine side... Stock parts, FAR aero, 36t cargo. Cargo has about 11 parts aswell.

It looks like a skylon that is for sure. Nice build. Cargo fraction isnt really that high tho and you could have used even 2 largest cargo holds.

Needs some canards in the front, col is a bit far back and its a bit heavy with FAR. Probably as like delta wing is now 0.4t, even reduced to minimum required strength. Cant really get it high with this wing, it cant pull the nose up at about 8km. Probably the main control surfaces are too close to the CoM or something. So many changes that its basically a different craft. It just makes it to 70km orbit with FAR.

Some a bit more curve... I dont have landing gears on wings, but on the body. Probably why it weers off on a runway. And the wing is not grown from one part. So I dont need any struts. Wing comparison, left are yours. Right one is mine, with red line being an outline of your bigger one. 165m2 of wing area in FAR seems to be enough to get to orbit with full cargo. If It doesnt dissasemble on the runway.

This is what Ive been fiddling with. Trying to make it far compatible and so maybe 1.0 compatible... Observe the part count.

I meant i was able to get to orbit with Dao but not Intrepid. Might be as Dao has a split wing with elevators in front and a whole lot in the back. Tbh, im not an expert. I use rapiers and turbojets without wings... Update: I put some cat whiskers "winglets" on the front of the cockpit and I got Intrepid to orbit with FAR. Using mechjebs spaceplane hold function from liftoff... Only problem being that it was completely dry. Including cargo tank. Rapiers were staged at about 1200ms but vertical speed was only 10ms at the time. Tanks being mostly empty from getgo means alot of dead weight. Are you using some kind of a mod to attach the intakes radially? A debug feature I forgot about?

Alot better option would be for them to add more procedural parts. Just to reduce the number of simmilar parts like different lenght tanks, fairings, girders, wings etc.

Well I cant get it to fly well with FAR. Removed upper wing and lowered the hull abit for stability. With wings at half strength and even less "cargo" the craft is at 73t and barely takes off at the end of the runway. Then it cant hold its nose up at 5km up anymore, followed by unplanned disassembly as level speed reaches 400ms at 5km. Curiously all stability indicators were green when I started modifications. Probably not enough wing area as it takes 14 degrees of AOA for a level flight at 120ms. 160 is what I reach at the end of the runway.

Gonna have to try it with far aswell. Still i think Dao is a more efficient use of a large cargo bay. I even made it to orbit with far installed, just removed the second layer of wings. A slightly less cargo to orbit tho.

Not sure if FAR has a problem, but putting a small aero cap on a lander can, largest tank and KS-25 beneath it gives it a terminal velocity of 700m/s at Eve sea level. Getting into orbit with like 6000m/s dV. Just trying things with hyperedit here.

I present to you a Magic Schoolbus! A nice warm trip for 16 kerbals, now without pilot danger. Excursions are planned at both sides of the trip! http://imgur.com/a/3Sv43 642.4 LF and 597.4 LO used which makes it to 38.8 per each of 16 passangers. (seems i havent dont this for so long I forgot how to insert an album)

Could use the claw for fuel transfer...

Yeah I am, but I guess rockets wont be that problematic. At least simple ones. Thing is that even using FAR really wide rockets are still not hampered by aerodynamics. In most cases the opposite is true. At least from my experience.