SpenSpaceCorp

Alright, seeing how a minimum height can be achieved, if there is a tie height wise, the tiebreaker will be the vessel with the least amount of mass.

Nice, however the contest is being judged on the height of the vessel, not the mass. Good entry though! Also since they can become quite short, if it is smaller than around 1-3 large probe cores, height is now judged by the square structural panels.

Nice! I was just trying to present an example which includes many different possible ways (like using a method of many short tanks connected.

lol, one million points for landing on EVE and returning to Kerbin with only ion engines!

RESULTS ARE IN: Kasuha http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/members/83982-Kasuha has created the shortest vessel able to attain orbit, less than half of a kerbal tall, making Kerbalkind proud! The Kerbals at KSC are getting pretty jealous of the fact that the rockets they fly into space are much taller than they are. Mission: Build the shortest (heightwise) rocket that can achieve Kerbin orbit with a periapse above the atmosphere (height of the periapse does not count towards score, it just needs to be above 70 000m). Rules: -Stock Only -No asparagus staging (fuel being fed into other tanks and then dropped) *HOWEVER: fuel being fed into central tanks ARE allowed AS LONG AS no tanks are dropped in this process -Stages must stage VERTICALLY not Horizontally. -No radial mounted engines allowed. -No RCS allowed -Absolutely no cheats (alt f12 menu) Timeframe: Contest ends Saturday, January 18, 2014 Judging: -The only criteria for judgement is height, measured the square structural panels (the height of the side of them) -A picture of the height of the craft is required with structural panels beside it to judge height. (see picture below for an example how to do this). A picture of the resulting orbit is not required. It just has to make it into orbit above the atmosphere. -Height is determined by stacking large probe cores spanning from the top of your vessel to the bottom (see images below for example; mine is 16 probe cores tall) EDIT: now height is determined with the SIDE HEIGHT of square structural panels as the vessels can get quite small. Here is my attempt, providing a possible layout and example of criteria, as well as a way to judge height: This is an example of HOW to tell the height of the vessel. (Ex: use flat panels from the top, build sideways, then build down using large probe cores) Note the use of panels on the bottom to make sure the probe cores span from the top all the way to the bottom. (Mine is 16 large probe cores tall) EDIT: now height is determined with the SIDE HEIGHT of square structural panels as the vessels can get quite small. In flight: Staging: Resulting Orbit:

My first attempt resulted in a landing with 84.42 units of fuel and 103 units of oxidizer. My second attempt as shown in the photo, resulted in 94.05 units of fuel and 115 units of oxidizer. I started my Munar injection burn at my apoapse, still WELL within Kerbin's atmosphere, and managed to do a very low suicide burn skipping right past circularization which meant I had to land on the dark side (I still don;t know how my three kerbonauts aren't splattered across the Munar surface! I decided to try and get into orbit (futile anyway) but ended up with a decent suborbital suicide hop.

So if the RAPIER engine indeed requires less intake air, it would be better suited for say, Laythe?

I am just wondering what everyone thinks of the new RAPIER engine in terms of its thrust and efficiency compared to the previous method of switching between jet and rocket engines. For my experience so far, a small SSTO with RAPIER engines typically needs at least two of them due to the reduced thrust. What do you guys think of it in terms of SSTO design changes and such?

Alright, thanks!

Hi, as a lot of us are aware there are multiple addons which add more parts with different aerodynamic properties, such as larger wings and different control surfaces. I am just wondering who here thinks it would be awesome if in future updates more wings were added (say, larger ones for MOAR LIFT! ) as well as different control surfaces.

I have recently used an addon called SCANsat terrain mapping used to scan celestial bodies for their different biomes (currently only Kerbin, the Mun, and Minmus). This technique really helps organize and visualize missions both scientifically and logistically. Anyway, what future biomes do you think would be cool for the rest of the celestial bodies in Kerbal Space program?