The SWERV Bird - Bob's Nuclear SSTO

[Phelidai]

I was messing around with some fighter style planes and having a blast until I thought of an idea... a nuclear powered plane! Safe for everyone, and Bob gets the capsule door bolted tight, because he'll never need to leave!

The first few tests went well.
 

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Mostly well.

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It took flight. It stayed flying. It didn't even burn through it's fuel as fast as I thought it would!

So I set myself a challenge: Land on the island airfield. A few attemps later, it was done!

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But I was beginning to realize how incredibly fast the ISP (and thus the delta-V) rose with altitude, at least early on. In fact, during my cruise to the island airfield, i'd gained nearly 200s of ISP in just a kilometer of altitude!

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For reference, the fully fuelled craft on the ground had a delta-V of around 1,650m/s.

So a new challenge presented itself: SSTO. Shockingly, I didn't even need to make any major modifications! A reaction wheel here, a shorter wingspan there, moar struts... and I'd made it to space!

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Further optimisation can definitely be made. I threw this together in around an hour and a half. If you run any similar missions, please include them here!

[Kerbalyer]

Very interesting! I can't even make a plane in KSP2!

Edited February 25, 2023 by Kerbalyer

[magnemoe]

interesting, not that nuclear engines works well once you get some km up, knew that for years 

You might want to wrap the tanks inside an aerodynamic tube, perhaps give the  engine an skirt, none looks very aerodynamic. 
To study is it worth it using jet engines climbing to attitude subsonic, perhaps using nuclear to help take off? 

[astroroman]

Nice! Just built a similar vehicle (pretty much the same just with the 3.75m capsule on the front and a different wing/tail layout) which was able to do a Mun flyby on its own and when airlaunched from a Goliath-powered plane, could land on Minmus and return with plenty of fuel left over. I wonder if it's possible to strap on a few Whiplash engines and take it to Duna or Laythe and back?

[CatWithAJetpack]

Very cool. I just tried to make my own, but I can't get it to work. Could you post a download for your craft?