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SSTOs! Post your pictures here~


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so.

much.

gosh.

darn.

CLIPPING!

I am not against clipping, BUT THAT'S JUST INSANE!

Also, it must be hard to refuel it. :D

Exactly, only certified company techs can do refueling for this yacht :D, with specially designed equipment.

Edited by Mesklin
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Ladies and gentlemens, let me introduce you new edge of space ships technology: beauty and powerful space yacht "Silver bullet".

1ZFX4tih.jpg

Is it possible to refuel the rocket fuel tanks on your design? I can't see the tanks sticking out anywhere to click on em :D

Edited by Cruzan
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I.T. X58 d

STOL SSTO capable of achieving LKO twice on one fuel tank (provided you only want to land near the equator). Over-endowed in the docking port department and not too airhoggy - compared to my usual abuses, that is.

1. for the downward facing take off assistance rocket

2. the jet

3 the rockt.

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ETA - daytime shots!

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https://www.dropbox.com/s/zeby75ybpkik7d1/X58%20d.craft

Edited by Fellow314
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Over-endowed in the docking port department

lol! That ssto looks really cool though. I like the way the intakes are set up on it and it's very compact. 2 trips to LKO is nothing to sneeze at either ;)

I bet inigma would be interested in having that in SSI's catalogue of shuttles as well.

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You gave me a cool idea... hehehehe~!

Glad I could be of help, I look forward to seeing what you come up with. This project of mine I still have to fix a few things, but I am wondering how far I can go with it.

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Uh, does anyone have any tips on improving TWR? My current SSTO in progress has two jets and one nuke, the jets are fine, but the nuke's TWR is TERRIBLE. Adding the 24-S7's or whatever just eats up fuel, and yeah...

If you need pics or the craft just ask, I don't bite. :P

Two nukes?

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Uh, does anyone have any tips on improving TWR? My current SSTO in progress has two jets and one nuke, the jets are fine, but the nuke's TWR is TERRIBLE. Adding the 24-S7's or whatever just eats up fuel, and yeah...

If you need pics or the craft just ask, I don't bite. :P

I put together a SSTO with two stock jets with RAMjet intakes and one aerospike.

It worked quite well, I would just witch out the nuclear engine with the aerospike.

Nuclear engines should really only be used for travel between planets.

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If it's interplanetary, why the worry about twr? In a journey of months, what price an extra few minutes burn?

Pretty much this. Once you're in orbit, TWR becomes mostly meaningless. Doubling your engine weight just to boost TWR a bit is a huge waste of weight; you need enough TWR to do efficient burns in low orbits, where your thrust window is only a few minutes long, but once you're doing interplanetary stuff you'll have hours to do anything.

I mean really, my own interplanetary spaceplane designs now incorporate ion engines. IONS, the epitome of "low TWR". Like so:

e1DuaJu.png

Once it's in orbit the primary propulsion is a single LV-N (actually a hybrid ion from a mod, but stat-wise it's nearly identical to the LV-N), which with its fuel load has 3-4k dV. Those two little ion pods at the ends of the wings, total weight ~1 ton, more than double that delta-V total. Sure, the burn time will be a few hours, but a vessel this small has no problem with x4 physics acceleration, so it's more like an hour, tops while I go do something else. And with that much dV capability, it's not hard to fly to Laythe and such, especially with some strategically placed fuel depots.

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With more ion engines... would the burn be shorter?

I have actually never used ion before so I do not know anything about them.

Unfortunately with my recent ventures in Ion engines I have found more engines means more battery drain. And thats honestly your biggest problem with ion engines.

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My newest test craft... it has no wings, and yet it flies in FAR. Just goes to show lifting bodies do work if they go fast enough.

This idea inspired me, but lifting bodies are annoying. So I did something a little different: no vertical tail or rudder (with FAR of course!). I copied the real-life MD/Boeing X-36 prototype aircraft.

Yaw control is provided only by thrust vectoring and reaction wheel torque. There are no hidden control surfaces or wings that you can't see. I was shocked at how well this design actually works; sideslip ends up being a nonissue even under completely manual control (SAS off). As a bonus, the lack of tail reduces drag.

Rudders are for wimps! :D

629px-Boeing-X36-InFlight.jpg

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