Science 45 space shuttle, pure stock - how about it ?

[hurdurdur]

After all the advanced technology usage decided to take my knowledge down deep to the days of the beginning. This is space shuttle for small payloads, pretty small and pretty cheap.

As this science stage has no proper wheels it lands in water. Everything but the boosters is recoverable. Price without the probe pictured is 14,506 credits (cargo is at the tail, since there is no cargo bay and drag in front would mess things up). I suppose an mk1 crew cabin would serve just fine there for crew transport as well. Struts are necessary since the command pod tended to fall off at landing ... and the front of the plane is normally not expected to fall off. Parachute is for reducing drag only, not used really.

 

Takeoff is designed upside down due toe drag from the rudders, no point to fight it:

Somehow forgot to take the screenshot from releasing the probe (had to go out to eva with the pilot and nudge it since it is so tight there).

After detaching the probe pictured and doing the deorbit burn - i even had some fuel left (Jebediah knows he is in for a bonus). One must be very conservative with electricity though.

Just remember one thing - there are no wheels, you have to land in water (at 50m/s horizontal speed it survives, or use the parachute (which i added to reduce drag only) and rocket engines to land on tail):

Quite a scenic landing site.

Full gallery from 2 flights can be found at http://imgur.com/a/naD3O

 

[klond]

 I pretty much just do sandbox stuff so cost and science don't really affect me, but I'm commenting because I have never thought "F wheels, I'm landing on water."

[hurdurdur]

3 hours ago, klond said:

 I pretty much just do sandbox stuff so cost and science don't really affect me, but I'm commenting because I have never thought "F wheels, I'm landing on water."

Give it a few shots, it's surprisingly easy (and since the landing strip is super wide it's harder to miss). Also if you land in water just in front of ksp then in career mode the credit penalty isn't huge either.

[hurdurdur]

Made a video of a crewed flight as well.

 

[Torquimedes]

6 hours ago, hurdurdur said:

Give it a few shots, it's surprisingly easy (and since the landing strip is super wide it's harder to miss). Also if you land in water just in front of ksp then in career mode the credit penalty isn't huge either.

That's pretty clever, shedding wheels that eat your part count, add drag and cause grief by being so brittle.  

[CaptainTrebor]

I think I'll use a varient of this as a rescue craft.