A question on the practicality of Space Shuttles

[Champ]

"I'd go so far as to argue that a large majority of all KSP flights that end catastrophically do so when landing (deliberately or otherwise)."

Not true with _my_ spaceplanes. They are often destroyed in flight (atmospheric pressure destroys the ship when i try some manoeuvre and i forgot to hit the "caps lock" key for smooth controls).

I must admit i landed successfully only once.

But most of my spaceplane fail BEFORE i try to land !

[windows_x_seven]

It's much easier to build a rocket with a recoverable first stage (recover it using FMRS). Much, MUCH easier.

I think that doing that gives you way more freedom in building payloads to be launched with a reusable booster, you have much less size limitations.

[Vegetal]

Well, in KSP I also think landing is the most challenging part of an SSTO mission. Usually because the plane you are flying is a big and unwieldy whale, and it's so heavy and has so little lift for the supersonic phase, you have to come in fast. Kinda like the STS landings actually....

With smaller craft it's usually a relaxed affair.

And....I want stock rotors in KSP. Damn fixed wing dictatorship...

[Highguard]

Hang on, hang on! We're all missing the most important statement in the OP:

...[the Space Shuttle is] still one of the most iconic spacecraft and one of the first you learn about as a kid

*Sob* Apollo was still the icon when I was a kid (and whether it would get to the moon).

[Nothalogh]

Hang on, hang on! We're all missing the most important statement in the OP:

*Sob* Apollo was still the icon when I was a kid (and whether it would get to the moon).

And now it's Dragon

[viktor19]

I don't want to have to return a crewed vehicle and risk disaster every time I put a piece of a station or satellite in orbit.

Ironically, that's what NASA has done for 30 years...

[OV-099]

Guys I think there's a way to recover the first stage of a rocket without mods! I think attaching a probe core will let it be recovered, provided it has parachutes.

[nothingSpecial]

And I will double it here:

Okay.

I tried to make career-useful shuttle. Well, I mostly cheated my way through anything that stood between me and design and test process, yet the results.

First of all, I still fail at shuttles, at Mk3 shuttles at least, I mean.

Second, it is possible to bring Mk3 shuttle stack up to 6 000 m/s of delta-vee for less than ~110 000 funds with solid boosters and for ~140 000 funds with liquid ones with ~40 000 funds recovered - I just need to tweak engine placement (I tried to design stack without RCS building aid mod, because I am too often rely on it).

I used MPL as payload and benchmarked my shuttle against space station contracts. Payment for successful science-lab-including five-kerballed space station is 132 250 funds. Double this figure for the Mun station contract.

That means that the shuttle stack will pay itself in stock career, in three-four runs for Kerbin or if you lucky in one Munshot.

Are there more economically efficient designs? Sure.

Still the STS-alike can be profitable in KSP. Maybe I will refine the design so it will be easy in use even for me in couple days.

So non-optimized design should bring like 30-40% of recoverability and have uses in stock.

Hope it helped and hope I'm not too late.

[The_Rocketeer]

Guys I think there's a way to recover the first stage of a rocket without mods! I think attaching a probe core will let it be recovered, provided it has parachutes.

Probe cores don't stop things being despawned due to atmosphere. I forget what the exact figures are, but it's something like below 30km altitude and beyond 5km distance from the active craft, anything in an atmosphere despawns regardless whether it's got a crew, probe core or anything, UNLESS it's already stationary on the surface.