I think I had the lowest slingshot pass.. Ever.

[NuclearWarfare]

So I decided with 0.17 to see how getting planes in orbit would be. I made some weird contraption, and after my orbital mission, I had just enough fuel to get my orbit down. But something amazing happened. At the 36000 mark, it started going back up. I was upset because I could not get a picture, but I promise you it happened. When I went back around, it decided to enter the atmosphere and bring me home... I don't know how this happened but it was amazing.

Edited September 22, 2012 by NuclearWarfare

[swiftgates24]

360,000m? That's not low...I think you meant 36,000 However, it is not the lowest. Someone made a lower one somewhere but I don't remember where. It was like 30,000.

[NuclearWarfare]

Oh yes, thank you for telling me, I'll go edit that.

[zapy97]

wow there goes the crazy nuke with the low orbit, well it is good fun to do that but you need alot of speed, well i guess from minmus return it is possible, just show us tha map veiw

[CobraA1]

Yup - entirely possible if you're going fast enough. In 0.16, I did a variety of tests using high speed reentry starting from Minimus' height. Doing that, I determined that 30km was a good perigee to shoot for for reentry. Much above that, and I'd often reenter space due to the atmosphere not slowing me down enough.

With the kracken gone and interplanetary stuff fully supported, I imagine you could easily set up much faster flybys and do the same at lower altitudes.

[vexx32]

I recall seeing someone doing a ridiculously low flyby of the Mun -- just under 3km altitude, and just barely clearing one of the mountains... that was a while back, though, and from memory he was flung far out into Kerbol orbit ahaha