The mystery deepens! I have managed to create a ship that totally breaks the spaceplane hanger. After loading it, the parts menu does not have icons. However, if you click 'sort by mass', suddenly they appear. Among the icons is an asteroid (which you can spawn into the hanger), and a Kerbal. If you spawn the asteroid, it has terrible textures. You can't spawn the Kerbal, but mousing over it causes it to rotate and irreversibly expand. Curiously, I can't select any parts on this ship. Instead of highlighting green, they highlight blue as if I am creating an action group. Here are some pictures! Code is weird.