Leave the Atmosphere Without Rockets?

[Hooligan Labs]

I made it to 45 km! Can you make it to the official Kerbal edge of space, 69,077.55 meters?

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Many mods do not actually have air-breathing engines for their "jets", and thus would be disqualified.

Edit: Also specifically not allowed are RCS thrusters, that has already been done (see replies).

Any system that does not return the pilot safely to Kerbin's surface is only qualified for honorable mention, as surviving pilots will be able to brag much longer.

Awards thus far!

Greatest Height without Mods: Nao spacewalked to 55,262 meters, getting back into the ship though nerves of steel and a mind of madness! http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/forum/showthread.php?p=261670#post261670

Second place: iplop has made it to 50,492m, beating my greatest height and surviving!

Greatest Height with Mods: Cooly568 at 89,015 meters with a very nice mod pack: http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/forum/showthread.php/15348-0-16-Spaceplane-parts-rescales-edits-and-additions?highlight=ramjet

Honorable Mentions

EVA FTW: eppiox at 48,488 meters (no survivors)

Insane Crash: Fendleton with magic canards at 272,239 meters. lucidLemon following with 226,000m.

Edited September 11, 2012 by Hooligan Labs
Rules clarification, added winners thus far

[eppiox]

My best rocket can get to 39.3km.

If I Eva I can get to this

How does your rocket launch off so fast at the start?

[what-the]

What about rcs? That should be excluded.

[Hooligan Labs]

My best rocket can get to 39.3km.

If I Eva I can get to this

How does your rocket launch off so fast at the start?

I am using a few tricks to get to max speed...

First, light as possible! As of the current version, 1.6, you do not need air intakes for jet engines to work. Of course, you can't improve air flow with better intakes either... But regardless, you can save the weight of that.

Also, I have my engines fire for a while before letting go, same as you have set up. First, this lets them spin up to full power (takes a few seconds). Second, I want to burn at least half of the fuel. This is all about thrust to weight ratio!

Great idea with the EVA! That might work for getting out of the atmosphere! But I'm going to have to get the mod that lets you put a parachute on your Kerbal.

[Hooligan Labs]

What about rcs? That should be excluded.

If you can get into space using RCS, I will be VERY impressed.

[what-the]

If you can get into space using RCS, I will be VERY impressed.

I've done it before in this. RCS rocket challenge

[nhnifong]

Is the best strategy here to go straight up so that after your air-breathing engines give out, you have to coast through the least amount of atmosphere?

[Letum]

Using an RCS and jet engine mix it is very easy to exit the atmosphere and gain 150km+.

[Hooligan Labs]

I've done it before in this. RCS rocket challenge

Welp, I'm impressed! I thought those little gas thrusters had more to it than it seemed.

Is the best strategy here to go straight up so that after your air-breathing engines give out, you have to coast through the least amount of atmosphere?

That is my theory. Possibly, you could go horizontal, gain speed and then go vertical. You would not only have more momentum, but your engines may work longer because they would be drawing in air at a faster rate. However, controlling such a monster could be frustrating to impossible.

[bsalis]

My best rocket can get to 39.3km.

You should only use the jets that you have in the middle there since the outer ones don't work anywhere near as good high up. Also the air intakes are dead weight.

[iplop]

If you can get into space using RCS, I will be VERY impressed.

Does this count?

I went straight up 'till I reached ~26k m, then used RCS to do the rest.

Unfortunately I wasted 4 RCS tanks trying for orbital insertion. It could definitely go higher.

That was a really lazy build. Other folks can definitely do better.

[Hooligan Labs]

You should only use the jets that you have in the middle there since the outer ones don't work anywhere near as good high up. Also the air intakes are dead weight.

Yes, especially since the turbofans have 50% more max thrust. http://kspwiki.nexisonline.net/wiki/Turbofan_Engine

[Hooligan Labs]

Does this count?

I went straight up 'till I reached ~26k m, then used RCS to do the rest.

Unfortunately I wasted 4 RCS tanks trying for orbital insertion. It could definitely go higher.

That was a really lazy build. Other folks can definitely do better.

That is some great height! But I amended the competition to specifically exclude RCS thrusters, that competition has already been done.

[Cooly568]

Challenge Completed...

Rocket Design

Engine Shutoff

Apogee

Had to use a ramjet mod but it's still air to space.

[Fendleton]

'

Getting into space without engines is very easy: Just crash a jet with canards and change perspective to the glitchy magic fins. This altitude prediction isn't what it actually got though...

There we go at apoapsis. It actually bounced off the atmosphere and went even higher when it tried re-entering. I eventually ended the flight with it still slowly gliding down, one hour and 8 minutes later. Canards are freaking insane.

Technically I don't think I qualify if less than 1/20th of the craft gets into space, accidentally, AFTER the pilot dies from crashing into the ground, but still. Canards make pretty good spaceplanes...the control surface glitch + the fact that detached canards constantly twitch = the canard accelerates to between one and two kilometres per second and shoots into space.

[Hooligan Labs]

Challenge Completed...

Rocket Design

Engine Shutoff

Apogee

Had to use a ramjet mod but it's still air to space.

Great work! Link me the mod, I'll check it and give you credit.

Fendleton, I'm giving you the "Insane Crash" award! Such improbable physics certainly deserves recognition.

[Fendleton]

My 100% stock attempts have been consistently getting to 35-42km. The problem seems to be that the distance between "drag falls away so the craft accelerates properly" and "engines stop working" is so small that you really don't have much time for stock engines to work properly.

[Cooly568]

Here it is! http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/forum/showthread.php/15348-0-16-Spaceplane-parts-rescales-edits-and-additions?highlight=ramjet

[iplop]

43,064m altitude!

No RCS, etc.

Went Straight up.

It was surprisingly stable.

Here's the ship: [ATTACH]32689[/ATTACH]

(stock)

Edited September 9, 2012 by iplop

[Hooligan Labs]

Here it is! http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/forum/showthread.php/15348-0-16-Spaceplane-parts-rescales-edits-and-additions?highlight=ramjet

Ah yes I've tried that myself, the credit is yours.

iplop, nice distance! It's interesting how you stacked using the jet cooling part, I have not seen that before. I put you on the first post too.

[Nao]

One thing you guys are forgetting is that tricoupler has a mass of 0.3 with a drag of 0.3 , making it 0.1 t and 0.3 drag per engine - if you just use small tank it has a dry weight of 0.125 and 0.2 drag and since in KSP drag is multiplied by mass , drag effect is 0.03 for tricoupler and 0.025 for dry small tank, (it just have to be near empty at the end of a burn to be more effective).

managed 49,362 km with this:

the rockets are just for speeding up the initial fuel burn , to about 22 litres per tank

[iplop]

I'll have to revise my design. O.o

Anyways, 45,485m altitude

Turns out fins for helicoptering down are lighter than a parachutes.

Edit:

49,002m altitude!

The ring of engines near the center are double stacked (engines mounted on the top + bottom).

Emptying the tanks:

Hairy landing; my fins broke:

The ship file: [ATTACH]32700[/ATTACH]

Edited September 9, 2012 by iplop

[The Stinger]

Highest I got was 43 Km. When I add more jets to my design it gets out of control at a certain height.

[eppiox]

Using something like Neo's I made it 48.75km, I kept adding to get the result below but even with <1L of fuel left in the tanks before you drop off in climbing speed I was still under. Seems more jets does not work :~(

Next step is multiple stages maybe

http://imgur.com/uf9pN

[Hooligan Labs]

I'll have to revise my design. O.o

Anyways, 45,485m altitude

Turns out fins for helicoptering down are lighter than a parachutes.

Edit:

49,002m altitude!

The ring of engines near the center are double stacked (engines mounted on the top + bottom).

Emptying the tanks:

Hairy landing; my fins broke:

The ship file: [ATTACH]32700[/ATTACH]

Wow, those wings seriously are lighter, aren't they... though the real trick was landing using just the canards, I've only done that a few times in truely desparate situations and did not think of using them as the only safety device! You are winning the stock challenge now.

Highest I got was 43 Km. When I add more jets to my design it gets out of control at a certain height.

Yeah, an Advanced SAS is pretty much manditory for this.

Using something like Neo's I made it 48.75km, I kept adding to get the result below but even with <1L of fuel left in the tanks before you drop off in climbing speed I was still under. Seems more jets does not work :~(

Next step is multiple stages maybe

http://imgur.com/uf9pN

What a monster! Not sure how multiple stages would help... The purpose of stages in normal rocketry is reduce weight by throwing out empty fuel tanks. Here we should be should be using every fuel tank to support as many thrusters as possible, to maximize thrust to weight!