The Reliant Robin Shuttle!

[Starwhip]

If anyone watches the BBC America show, Top Gear, you'll know the Reliant Robin. And you may have even seen this thing. THIS is the most KSP-ish spacecraft I have EVER seen:

The Reliant Robin Shuttle. You notice the solid fuel boosters, the liquid fuel tank, and, you know, the CAR on it...

Ignition!

Liftoff!

And, to top it off, a failure to separate the glider from the main rocket...

Which ended in a blaze of glory...

All in all, a classic KSP moment. In real life.

[Canopus]

They had an browser game about this which inspired a very early version of KSP too.

[bsalis]

They almost pulled it off too.

Unfortunately the Reliant Robin failed to decouple from the tank. Otherwise the RC pilot would have had a chance to land it.

[Tw1]

Had a go of kerbalising that about a week ago

Pilot can't see... good start.

[astropapi1]

Hey, I'M RELEVANT!

EDIT: Here's the game they made about the darn thing.

[Bedwind]

Had a go of kerbalising that about a week ago

POWAAAAAAAAH!

This is awesome.

[Tw1]

EDIT: Here's the game they made about the darn thing.

That's pretty cool.

Once I worked out you could actually steer the thing, I managed to land too.

[Starwhip]

Oh, come on! My school internet blocks the game....

I wanna play it.

EDIT:

WAIT!!! IT WORKS!!!

EDIT2:

What was your altitude? 378,000 meters? Jeez.

Edited January 29, 2014 by Starwhip

[DisarmingBaton5]

Here's the game they made about the darn thing.

I'm sorry, Kerbal Space Program. I have found my calling.

Once I worked out you could actually steer the thing

What? How?!

[Tw1]

What? How?!

Arrow keys once in flight.

There's a bit of a trick to it, you've got to turn to reduce your horizontal speed, or it will bounce and break.

What was your altitude? 378,000 meters? Jeez.

Yep! I managed to do about 410,000 one lucky time, but didn't manage to land. They don't really give units though.

Though it's probably a good thing they don't control the real one this way.

[technicalfool]

Small factoid:

The cataclysmic explosion at the end was not the shuttle and rocket exploding. By the time the contraption hit the deck, it had expended all its fuel and went "crunch" rather than "bang".

However, this was an army bomb range, and the army were due to be dropping thousand-pounders in the location on that day. So, what you get in the video is a frame or two of the Robin embedding itself and wood splinters starting to poke out of the central "fuel tank" (actually, just another set of SRBs in an orange container), and then a quick cut to a video of one of the thousand pound bombs going off in the same location.

Other than that, the whole video was real. And, really impressive!