Need Help On Improving SSTOs

[foamyesque]

His wings actually do have both AoI and dihedral on them, @Raideur Ng.

[GoSlash27]

Nightshine,

 After looking over your later comments, I have some additional tips.

 I realize that you are trying to expedite things with the higher t/w, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. You can often reduce the fuel fraction by bumping up the t/w. But here's where I see you going wrong: Those LV-Ns. I bet if you get rid of them completely, you'll see an immediate gain in both your payload and your total fuel on orbit.

You're basically transitioning from ridiculously overpowered to ridiculously underpowered. Lobbing high early to keep from overheating, and then trying to establish orbit high and slow before you run out of time with your weak and heavy nukes.

You really shouldn't bother with nukes on a low orbit SSTO unless you're trying to complete the *entire* flight on liquid fuel alone, and even then it's not the optimal way to orbit payloads. Nukes don't really pay off their mass unless they exceed 2 km/sec DV, and low orbit SSTOs don't need that much.

For what you're doing there, I could exceed your payload to orbit using just a pair of RAPIERs. No Whiplashes and no NERVs.

 

Put another way... you have 10t of engines that aren't really contributing to your effort, plus the extra fuel to lift & feed them, and the extra structure to support all of it and the extra drag attendant with that. All of that is eating into the payload you *could* be carrying to orbit.

Best,
-Slashy

 

Edited December 13, 2016 by GoSlash27