Lavaeolus - Ultra Heavy Staged Spaceplane

[geb]

Everybody is preparing for 0.17, making their plans, making their spaceships. I'm doing it too. My first interplanetary craft is going to be taking off horizontally from the runway.

Pictures: http://imgur.com/a/lUtDB

The Lavaeolus spaceplane isn't designed for landings. I'm going to be using it for flyby and orbiter missions at first, doing vital research to help in planning lander missions (getting a feel for how much fuel is needed to return, figuring out how big the planetary atmospheres are so that I can aerobrake without "oops").

This thing is fun to fly, as long as you don't scrape its engines off on the runway. Don't pitch up to far during takeoff!

If you activate the main ascent rocket at 14k, then ditch the flank jets at about 20k, you should be able to get the upper stages into orbit with about 3km/s deltaV to spare.

The Kerbin return stage is a great little plane all by itself. It's got pretty good glide characteristics as long as the fuel tank is mostly empty.

[Thobewill10]

That's really darn cool. Awesome work.

[Felsmak]

Craft-level: Soviet.

[geb]

Craft-level: Soviet.

I honestly can't tell if that's meant to be a good thing...

[Dr_Swan]

Can I get in? I'm very good with space plane and shuttle designs.

[Felsmak]

I honestly can't tell if that's meant to be a good thing...

It's a good thing, it means big and awesome! Not necessarily safe, but what ships are safe in KSP?

[geb]

Can I get in? I'm very good with space plane and shuttle designs.

The Lavaeolus spaceplane is there for everybody to play with. Fly it, rebuild it, or build something better... whatever you like!

[SargeRho]

The Party approves of this design.

[ledo1222]

Time to fly this badboy

[Elipsis]

I really like this design. It was the first spaceplane I've ever actually gotten into... ya know... space. I was actually able to get it to Mun without too much trouble. One thing about spaceplanes is that they seem to get you perfectly aligned with the ecliptic plane if you take off in a straight line.