Construct a spaceship using a single SSTO

[Entelin]

This challenge puts your SSTO skills into practice. I've seen many great SSTO's, but they have almost entirely been tailored for their "payload". The goal here is to create an SSTO capable of a general purpose payload that is reliable enough to actually use over and over again.

Mods allowed: Kerbal Attachment System(required), Damned Robotics, Mechjeb, any purely informational mod such as enhanced navball or mechanic.

Parts not allowed: Command chair, Ion engines, Jet engines (except on the SSTO itself)

Part clipping and air-hogging is permitted, Cheat menu otherwise not allowed, etc

1. Create _one_ SSTO

2. Use this SSTO to build a spaceship which you will then use to travel to any moon of Jool, return to kerbal, and land safely with.

3. You are allowed to use only one instance of this SSTO, and it must not leave LKO

4. You may spawn as many ground vehicles as you like (refuelers, cranes, haulers, grabbers, etc) (use KAS to refuel the tanks of your SSTO). Ground haulers, etc, optional for assisting the loading of the ssto with the payload.

5. You may use KAS struts, your SSTO's payload may not assist in the SSTO's flight (fuel or engines). Your payload may contain wings / control surfaces, so long as they are not required for the SSTO to haul said payload.

6. A maximum of 1/2 final spaceship mass may be hauled at once. (No hauling up an entire viable ship, the point is that the ssto shouldn't be designed for a specific payload)

7. You may fly your SSTO as many times as you like, hauling up any parts that you wish other than the exceptions above, but you only get ONE, you may not respawn your SSTO or modify it in any way outside of EVA+KAS. You crash it, you must start (the construction project) over.

8. The SSTO may not be spawned initially with a payload.

9. Any technicality that is outside of the spirit of what I have described above but failed to anticipate is also not permitted. If in doubt, ask in the thread.

10. Vertically launched SSTO's are permitted as well, parachutes are fine.

11. EASY VERSION: Instead of a moon of Jool, go to Minmus or the Mun

Scoring will be: # of kerbals which were landed at the destination and returned safely to Kerbin.

The central point of this challenge is to build a reliable SSTO construction vehicle. Stable, flexible payload, actually reusable and practical. Then to see how large a ship you can build with it. Submissions should at least include screenshots of all relevant craft and a screenshot of each successful payload attachment.

Normal difficulty completions:

none yet

Easy difficulty completions:

none yet

Edited December 27, 2013 by Entelin

[Entelin]

This was my first attempt at this a number of months back. It was somewhat successful, it was able to get one full orange tank into orbit, but it was far too unstable. I have a new design that I am going to try when I get back home from the holidays. I am going to try the new rapier engine, build something that's more flat and smaller, using nuclear engines was a mistake. I had originally intended for this to be able to deliver a payload to laythe and return, which is why they were there. It should be easier to build one that is more reliant on rocket engines and has less endurance.

Edited December 27, 2013 by Entelin

[British_Rover]

I would give it a try with B9 parts and FAR but not with just stock aircraft parts.