[FAR] Silbervogel Challenge

[MedwedianPresident]

During WWII, the German scientist Eugen Sänger has designed a very unique space glider concept - the "Antipodal Bomber". The bomber, which would be called "Silbervogel" ("Silver Bird") would take off, reach a velocity of several kilometers per second and enter a ballistic trajectory. Once it will hit the atmosphere again, it will "bounce" off the atmosphere, going on another, shorter ballistic trajectory. This would be repeated until the Bomber has made one "orbit" and landed on it's home airfield. It would be capable of dropping a bomb onto virtually any city on the planet.

You must build a vessel with similar capabilities and objectives.

RULES

1. FAR is required for this challenge, as the unrealistic stock aerodynamics would not allow for bouncing off the atmosphere.

2. Any part mods and/or plugins are allowed, as long as no cheating takes place (e.g. HyperEdit, etc... are forbidden). MechJeb is not recommended.

3. Objective: Build a vessel,

which can take off the runway,

enter a ballistic trajectory,

reach an altitude of at least 80.000 m ASL on the first ballistic trajectory,

"bounce" off the atmosphere without propulsion assistance (after entering the first ballistic trajectory, the engines may not be ignited anymore),

drop a payload of at least 3 tons above a point far away from the takeoff site (for example KSC 2), from an altitude of at least 30.000 m ASL,

circumfere Kerbin one time,

descend into the thick layers of the atmosphere again and,

safely land on the KSC runway.

4. The vessel must have aerodynamic lift capability (note: because you have FAR, you can use lifting body), that would allow it to perform such a masterpiece of long-duration ballistic gliding.

5. The vessel must be manned (at least 1 poor condemned kerbal).

6. You may add a drone core to the bomb, and control its descent. To prevent the bomber from getting lost, do not forget to save!

7. This is not a challenge to earn points, but to show off your crazy and insane evil overlord ideas to other people. My favorite entries will be listed.

8. The usage of a launch sled or of a piggyback launch system is encouraged, but optional. This also means that stages may be dropped.

9. OPTIONAL: After refueling, reloading the bomb and re-attaching any dropped stages and/or being reattached to the piggyback launch plane, the mission can be repeated.

10. If any loopholes or uncertainities in the rules arise, inform me and I will modify the rules respectively.

11. The Vessel may not enter orbit.

Sincerely, MedwedianPresident

My favorite entries:

Edited March 25, 2015 by MedwedianPresident

[MedwedianPresident]

Is nobody interested?

[borisperrons]

IMHO, this is a difficult challemge, but not impossible at all. I routinely do skip reentries with spaceplanes, so is definitely possible to perform a "bouncing" trajectory, maybe not one as ambitious as Sanger envisioned, but still.

You should provide an entry of yours to show that is indeed possible, and to start competition. I'll definitely give this a go, since it's fairly challenging and let's face it, of all Amerika Bomber designs Sanger's was the craziest of them all, even better than Von Braun's piloted V2.

[Wanderfound]

It would help if you defined how accurate the bomb needs to be. It's very hard to hit anything from altitude with an unguided bomb, but avoiding the need to ride it down would probably be better, and setting one target for everone would likely be best.

Some landmark west of KSC? The pyramids? Or maybe KSC itself? That'd allow a low-altitude bomb run and good explosions.

You also might want to add a "no orbit" rule to stop folks from taking a dozen circuits to line it up.

Edited March 25, 2015 by Wanderfound

[MedwedianPresident]

You also might want to add a "no orbit" rule to stop folks from taking a dozen circuits to line it up.

Rules adjusted.

[bs1110101]

I've tried this, though i cant get it to space easily, it always flips before it can get there. Aside from that, it flies quite well as long as you keep the fuel balanced.