Land On The Roof Of The VAB Using Only SRBs

[Elen Sila]

Hard mode – IVA only, no Mechjeb.

Super-hard mode – you must beat my 16-second record. (See video below.)

Protip – it helps to use Wolfram Mathematica to calculate things like ideal TMR on takeoff and landing. Here's my math.

[Ninety-Three]

Pft, math. Eyeball it! I present to you: Six seconds (or seven, if you insist upon a clear view).

On the launch pad.

Decouple the first set of boosters and engage the second.

Decouple the second stage and drop to ground. In this screenshot, I'm landed, though the blast from my second stage hitting ground obscures it.

Look, the lander!

Clear view.

I didn't bother to, but since the entirety of your input to this design is pressing space twice after launch, it should be pretty easy to do this in IVA mode, once you practice a bit to get the timing down.

Edited September 2, 2013 by Ninety-Three

[Elen Sila]

Ha! I probably should have made the challenge to land intact. But, I didn't; so you beat me fair and square. Nicely done.

[Ninety-Three]

Putting a bit more work into the engineering of it, the same trajectory could be used to get almost the same time with Sepratrons, landing completely intact. You'll notice that I bubble-wrapped my ship in landing gear, with an impact tolerance of 80 you can slam into the VAB pretty hard and survive.

Edit: You could probably also manage an intact landing using exactly that ship, and adding some excellent timing on pre-igniting the SRBs before unclamping. That would get pretty precise, but once you bubble-wrap the SRBs, I bet it would land intact too.

Edited September 2, 2013 by Ninety-Three

[soggymushrooms]

I did it, but not any faster than either of you. Do I get brownie points for simplicity?

[fluffysnowcap]

well i made a design that work like a charm i just had problems getting the arc of the flight right as shown in gallery 2

hope you like the craft

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and if i broke the rules i just tryed it from the title alone not reading description as i wanted to do it now as it was alsome

all stock

[Bobnova]

Seven seconds to touchdown on the roof. No mechjeb/engineer/any mods used. (They're installed, but not attached to the rocket. It's a small SRB, one decoupler, spaceplan cockpit, two strap on chutes, and the launch tower. That's it.)

It's actually easier in inside-the-vehicle view mode as you can aim for just over the roof, external view is a lot harder to aim and time right.

It works maybe 80% of the time, with the remaining time destroying the cockpit when the still burning SRB is detached and the chutes open fully in one snap.

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Craft link for the brave.

EDIT:

As the entire ship consists of the cockpit and a disposable booster, I'd call this intact

[tstehler1]

I see no way this could possibly go wrong.

[Bobnova]

That gives me an idea! Now to see if it'll work.

EDIT:

Nope.

Edited September 2, 2013 by Bobnova