space ? ssto

[Lohan2008]

What is the official height for space for ssto ? / altitude

Edited October 9, 2013 by Lohan2008

[Hodo]

What do you mean?

The altitude of space in KSP is 69,100m. Or are you asking how tall can you build a SSTO?

[Leyvin]

70KM ... as soon as you hear the soothing space music, you've made it up there; as far as KSP is concerned at any rate

[Nibb31]

SSTO means Single Stage To Orbit.

Orbit is not about vertical altitude, it's about horizontal speed.

[Sirine]

32,000m...for most of my SSTO.

The SSTO speed at 32km could be 2300m/s (Orbit speed) or could be as low as 1500m/s...(<---most people stuck here).

1800m/s at 32km is good enough.

[Kasuha]

SSTO is not necessarily a plane. Any rocket which gets to orbit without shedding off stages is an SSTO.

Space on Kerbin starts at 70 km. Or 69100 m as someone above mentioned.

To reach space you need very small rocket. The trick is to stay there. You need to get some serious horizontal speed besides the altitude.

[Scarecrow88]

For me, if it doesn't make orbit, it isn't an SSTO. The description is in the name and says it all really.

[capi3101]

An SSTO is not necessarily a spaceplane (and it irks me how many folks think the two terms are synonymous). If your rocket consists of payload/booster, and the booster has no seperation events, it's an SSTO.

SSTOs are horribly inefficient - in my experience, you get about a 4% payload fraction on an SSTO booster design, as compared to about 15% for an asparagus booster; 46 tonnes is the practical payload limit for an easy SSTO design. They also take careful flying; you can't just leave the throttle up all the way the whole way up. Building them is far, far easier to do and you don't have to worry about staging events - those are about the only advantages to them. An SSTO doesn't have to be small, either - that 46 tonne payload rocket weighs about 1150 tonnes all told and needs nine Mainsails to launch.

If any of y'all want, I'll share my magic formulas for building an SSTO rocket design. They're pretty simple, actually. Well, except for the backwards Tsiolkovsky part...

Anyways, 70k is where the atmosphere ends and the music begins; that's already been established.

Edited October 9, 2013 by capi3101

[Lohan2008]

Soothing Space music is ALL the info I needed ! Thanks Ksp'ers