Lowest Total Mass to get a Kerbal Into Kerbin Orbit Challenge

[Captain Anders]

Today I found myself messing around a bit with making a low-mass SSTO for bringing kerbonauts safely and cheaply out to my space stations. I was able to come up with a fairly sound design, but then I decided to see how low I could push the mass of the thing. Now it was no longer an SSTO, because it drops half its mass halfway up, but here it is stripped of such things as a docking port, RCS thrusters, RCS fuel, a second decoupler, and a parachute:

So - 8.08 tonnes it is. Now I am rather proud of this myself, but I am certain there's someone out there who can beat me. For my plane I used only one non-stock part, even if this part was pretty crucial to the design. This part was a large roundified liquid fuel tank from the KSPX Parts Expansion mod - it ran out of fuel just as my plane reached an altitude where the jet was hardly useful anymore, so this was pretty convenient.

Rules

Both space planes and rockets are allowed!

Balanced parts mods (judge for yourself) are allowed!

No aerodynamics mods!

You have to send a kerbal up there - no tiny probey things!

Post a screenshot showing the rocket/plane in question and the mass of it as I have done!

Have fun!

I look forward to seeing your submissions.

[tavert]

1.64 tons, with return capability: http://imgur.com/a/Y4y2m#0

[Captain Anders]

1.64 tons, with return capability: http://imgur.com/a/Y4y2m#0

Well that's definitely impressive. Seems I could've been a lot more minimalistic after all.