Rolling Stone - science SSTO with unlimited range

[Himynameisjake]

Ack, you beat me to it. Though I am still trying to figure out Tylo, because, self loathing?

[Roflcopterkklol]

I might be wrong here but I think the idea with spaceplanes is you don't need a TWR over 1 necessarily. Its not a rocket, its a plane. It has wings. Wings provide lift. At least that's my understanding.

I believe the OP's plane has a TWR of 0.9 on the runway.

You are probably right, My SSTO's top out at around 5000m/s in orbit, could probably get a fair bit more with less thrust (less mass and so on)

Yup. The Mach barrier puts a lower bound on that (grrr), but with about 0.9-1.0 on the runway, you can break it at ~10kms going a bit shallower than usual, as long as your plane is not too draggy. And then all the weight you save in engines can be fuel to increase you vacuum dV and payload.

Rune. TWR does marginally increase the atmospheric cutoff speed, but then again, it's not really worth it.

Just sayin rune, enough thrust and you can break the mach barrier below 10km, Heck with enough thrust and you can get into space without rocket assistance

Edited June 21, 2015 by Roflcopterkklol

[Rune]

Just sayin rune, enough thrust and you can break the mach barrier below 10km, Heck with enough thrust and you can get into space without rocket assistance

Oh, sure, that is totally doable. Fun, even. Never said anything different. I just said that it is not efficient in any way! Once you go over the air, all that gives you is a lot of useless airbreather weight (and therefore, an awful payload fraction), and below that, all that does is burning fuel to fight drag needlessly.

Rune. Why would you put wings on that, if you have TWR way over one? Just go all rocket-like.

[Himynameisjake]

I must be doing something wrong, because this thing happily cooks itself with nukes on a transfer burn.

Then again, I haven't mastered Kerbin ascent without noticeable heat damage as well.

Edited June 22, 2015 by Himynameisjake

[Majorjim!]

Rune. Why would you put wings on that?

because it's an SSTO spaceplane.

[ajburges]

Yup. The Mach barrier puts a lower bound on that (grrr), but with about 0.9-1.0 on the runway, you can break it at ~10kms going a bit shallower than usual, as long as your plane is not too draggy. And then all the weight you save in engines can be fuel to increase you vacuum dV and payload.

Rune. TWR does marginally increase the atmospheric cutoff speed, but then again, it's not really worth it.

Crikey, I thought a take-off jet TWR of .6 was slightly over powered!

Once you break 450 m/s air breathers give plenty of thrust. All my designs use discrete high efficiency vacuum engine arrays, so I also use them for the double duty of punching the sound barrier.

High TWR designs do need less dV in all cases. Problem is that your average fuel per dV goes up due to the extra engine mass (and the tyranny of the rocket equation). Because of this, the most efficient vehicle is often the one with the lowest TWR that can still do the job.

[Rune]

Crikey, I thought a take-off jet TWR of .6 was slightly over powered!

Once you break 450 m/s air breathers give plenty of thrust. All my designs use discrete high efficiency vacuum engine arrays, so I also use them for the double duty of punching the sound barrier.

High TWR designs do need less dV in all cases. Problem is that your average fuel per dV goes up due to the extra engine mass (and the tyranny of the rocket equation). Because of this, the most efficient vehicle is often the one with the lowest TWR that can still do the job.

Check the date, that comment was written under 1.0 aerodynamics. Now my rule of thumb is "don't go under 0,5".

Rune. And it works wonders on mass ratio.

[RAINCRAFTER]

Did you happen to get the name of the craft from the ship in Robert A. Heinlein's book, The Rolling Stones?

What about this?

EDIT: Wait, I didn't pay any attention to the craft! It looks fine. Rep'd.

Edited August 5, 2015 by RAINCRAFTER