Torquemadus

So, no stock space planes allowed then?

I visited the Mun in my stock space plane!

I've been experimenting with re-useable fly-back boosters. They are inspired by the original concept for the Space Shuttle, which consisted of two manned re-useable rocket planes. The booster was to act as the first stage, while the orbiter was to be the upper stage. The booster was eventually dropped from the design and replaced with solid rockets to save development costs. My version acknowledges that any stages that are released before I make orbit are going to be lost when they fall back into Kerbin's atmosphere. Therefore, I use solid rockets as my first stage. The logic behind this is that I'm expecting solid fuel to cost less than liquid fuel in the new patch and I expect empty solid rocket "trash bins full of boom" to have limited recovery value anyway. The design shown in the album below consists of a solid-fuelled first stage and three liquid-fuelled fly-back stages. In this case, they are being used to send the upper stage to perform a Mun landing. Each stage has enough fuel remaining after separation to get itself back to Kerbin and land on the runway. This is obviously a time consuming approach. I have to design and test fly each space plane stage separately. I'm also making extra work for myself during the mission by adding the requirement to pilot each stage back to the runway. Re-entry was actually the most difficult part to learn, since I'm aiming to re-enter within gliding distance of the KSC runway. Note that these plane are stock, with no mods used (except Kerbin Cup for the flags). See the link in my sig for more pics.

Edit: Moved images to album.

Edit: Moved images to album.

Edit: Moved images to album. Bill lands the Kestrel near the Mun's East Farside crater and gathers science from six different biomes.

Edit: Moved images to album. The Kerbooster Heavy Mk 2 uses larger wings, making it easier to fly and land safely. I usually find that I have to burn a small amount of fuel after re-entering to ensure the vehicle has enough speed and altitude to make it back to the runway.

Edit: Images moved to album. This next album shows the mid stage (Midbooster) and Kestrel flying to the Mun. The Midbooster provides the extra delta V needed to place the Kestrel in LMO. Once again, the Kestrel uses it's wheels for surface mobility after landing.

Edit: Replaced images with album. This next album shows the development and demonstration flight of Kerbooster heavy. It uses the same design philosophy as before, but uses the heavy rocketry parts. Note that some of the wing parts have not been unlocked at this point in my career save, so I've had to add multiple smaller wings in order to generate enough lift. It struggles to take off when fully fuelled, but otherwise flies ok. During the test flight, I turned off fuel drain from the central orange tank until the fuel in the other tanks was about to run dry. This meant that the fuel in the central tank was the last to be used, preventing issues with the centre of mass moving too far towards the rear of the vehicle during flight. Similarly, when preparing to return from orbit, I transfer the remaining fuel into the orange tank. This keeps the plane from flipping or tumbling when it returns to the atmosphere.

Edit: I've moved all of my images to albums now. The ghost shadows are caused by my use of NVidia stereoscopic 3D, which often causes issues with shadows. I see them even with the glasses on. On the other hand, depth perception makes it a lot easier to land!

Edit: I've now moved most of the images to albums.

Edit: Edited for brevity.

You know you play too much KSP when you gladly watch the YouTube video posted by the OP and think to yourself "Damn, the dude in this video is obviously way better at KSP than I am. I feel like such a noob." I wonder if he used a Stayputnik for the satellite probe core? Did he remember to extend the solar panels? Did he recover the booster core stage after the launch? George Clooney shouldn't have wasted so much EVA propellant flying around the Hubble Space Telescope. He should have returned to the shuttle's mk3 cockpit to replenish his supply in case of emergency. A competent astronaut would have kept back a reserve of propellant. That way, if the worst happened, he could dip his periapsis into the atmosphere and attempt to land on his head! Besides, a serious collision event like this was inevitable. Ever since NASA started testing multiplayer mode with the Russians, Europeans and Chinese, part counts have been going through the roof. Everyone knows NASA has access to huge supercomputers, which means that they can set their max debris limit way higher than normal players would expect.

All it needs is ZX Spectrum tape loading bars on the sides of the screen.

Edit: Edited for brevity.

Edit: Edited for brevity.

Edit: Images moved to album (see above).

Edit: Images moved to album (see above).

Edit: Replaced images with album. This album shows the Kestrel upper stage visiting Minmus and subsequently returning to the KSC.

Edit: Replaced images with album. The Kerbooster is a proof-of-concept fly-back booster. The idea is borrowed from early Space Shuttle concepts, which called for a winged first stage booster that would launch vertically and then fly back to a runway. To save development money, the booster idea was eventually dropped in favour of the SRBs we are now familiar with. I can't re-use my first stage, because it gets deleted when it falls back into the atmosphere. Therefore, I compromise by using a solid rocket "trash bins full of boom" first stage and make all subsequent stages recoverable.

Thank you for the replies everyone! Here are some more pics of my very early career mode ship: the Kercury spacecraft:

Jebediah Kerman. Status: deceased. Cause of death: Mun Rover unexplained sudden violent overturn and crash on gently sloped terrain. Cause of crash unexplained. Bill Kerman. Status: deceased. Cause of death: Collision with surface during jetpack EVA on Mun. Cause attributed to pilot error. Bob Kerman. Status: Intensive care in KSC infirmary. Cause of injuries: Parachutes failed to deploy. Luke Kerman. Status: Active. Kirk Kerman. Status: Active.

Yay! My test picture seems to work! (Can people see this?) Here are some more test pictures from my album.

Check out two important books by Robert Zubrin: The Case For Mars, and Entering Space. Buzz Aldrin heavily references "a guy called Zubrin" in his hugely underrated sci-fi novel Encounter With Tiber. In the novel, a group of aliens visit Earth in a star ship propelled by solar sails.

I hope 0.24 breaks my current save. I want to know whether my crazy partially reusable 2STO all solid first stage designs actually make economic sense compared to SSTOs. Edit: Pic