arachnid

Holy wow, Jarnis, that's a nice record. I'll have a go at it this evening, but I don't like my chances.

Best so far: 2m57s. I'm sure someone can do much better. Edit: 2m21s, using a two-stage all liquid design.

Jebediah's in a spot of trouble, and he needs to get out of town fast. If he's not on the planet, he can't be prosecuted, right? Help him out by getting him to escape velocity as fast as possible. Goal: Reach escape velocity in the least time since launch. A table of escape velocities is here. You may use anything from the basic parts or Sunday Punch's parts pack. You don't need to pack a parachute - nobody's going to be returning from this trip. About the atmosphere: Escape velocity is kind of meaningless at surface level, since the atmosphere is going to slow you down anyway. In order to keep in the spirit of the challenge, if you exceed escape velocity below 70k, the timer stops when you turn the engines off - if you have enough momentum to actually escape. So, for instance, if your last stage burns out at 50k, you may stop counting then as long as you're still over escape velocity when you get to 70k. I figure this ought to be an interesting challenge in part because of the air-resistance factor - the best approach might not be to peg the throttle the whole way, but to save precious fuel until higher up. Only time will tell.