There's no way for this SSTO to get into orbit, is there?

[Cupcake...]

That's a badass SSTO, I have thought of trying that sort of a design next, probably much easier.

They can be quite tricky to build but I think getting them into orbit is a lot easier in many ways.

Cupcake...

[mythic_fci]

Lemme see here...

First off, more lift surfaces would be highly recommended. They will help in the thinner atmosphere (ex. 30-40km)

Second, more air intakes is the #1 tip of the day. You don't have to hide them all-just stick on maybe 3-6 more radial intakes or 2 more ram air intakes, and I think you'll be covered all the way to 30-40km.

Third, AIRHOG DURING FLIGHT. Nukes are heavy, so fiddle with the throttle and the intakes to take you as high as you can go before the nukes come on. 2 tips are: 1. If the engine stops because of no air, hit X to throttle down, and throttle up about 15-20% less than before. 2. The higher you are, the more effective the nukes are, as the low thrust means it can't really do squat at lower heights.

Otherwise, you look all covered! In my opinion, follow these tips above for redesigning and flight and you should be all covered!

[qromodynmc]

If you ask me,You can use nukes after 10-15k meters,their isp will be high enough after that.

[Rune]

If you ask me,You can use nukes after 10-15k meters,their isp will be high enough after that.

Yup, their ISP goes over the best chemical engines can offer pretty early, from about 4km or so. So it's a misconception you should wait to fire them until you are really high, if you need the thrust.

What's KER?

Well I keep it at 100m/s because I am a little impatient and the longer I spend in atmo, the less liquid fuel I have in space. I find that my spaceplanes reach 100km apoaps + with that ascent profile on airbreathers alone, so my goal is to not only reach orbital speed, but to minimize my time spent in drag producing atmo.

Yeah, KER is Kerbal Engineer Redux, and I was telling you how sometimes it's OK to go over 100m/s ascent rate, if you are still accelerating fast enough to stay just a shade under terminal velocity, while you should still get it lower when you are higher and terminal velocity starts to increase more sharply with height. I usually settle for a speed run at 25-27 kms with about 10m/s vertical speed, while having screamed past 15kms at ~150m/s ascent rate, sometimes peaking at over 200m/s at 20 kms before sharply pulling down for beefy designs.

Rune. But that's a lot of practice flying SSTOs.

[Rune]

Screw it, spaceplanes are awesome, but I can't fly them for ****, it would take too many attempts to get into space for it to be worth time compared to a rocket. Until mechjeb can fly my spaceplane into orbit I'm just stickign with rockets :/

Don't despair! Keep a keen eye on vertical speed, and try something easier for a first stab at it, like a RAPIER powered design (no flameout worries!) with a nuke for in-space propulsion when you get better. The best SSTO you can get to begin with: Single RAPIER, single long 1.25m rocket fuel tank (the one with nice stripes), a jet fuel tank, and that can lift almost 5 mT to orbit of "other stuff" if you put enough wings and fly it right. Twice that power plant will allow you to push up to 10mT of stuff, and a nuke and cockpit fits in there great with a lot of support systems and some extra fuel.

Rune. "If one fool can learn, another can too".

[TeeGee]

Yup, their ISP goes over the best chemical engines can offer pretty early, from about 4km or so. So it's a misconception you should wait to fire them until you are really high, if you need the thrust.

Yeah, KER is Kerbal Engineer Redux, and I was telling you how sometimes it's OK to go over 100m/s ascent rate, if you are still accelerating fast enough to stay just a shade under terminal velocity, while you should still get it lower when you are higher and terminal velocity starts to increase more sharply with height. I usually settle for a speed run at 25-27 kms with about 10m/s vertical speed, while having screamed past 15kms at ~150m/s ascent rate, sometimes peaking at over 200m/s at 20 kms before sharply pulling down for beefy designs.

Rune. But that's a lot of practice flying SSTOs.

If you go that fast in thicker air druring ascent you're gonna burn up. That's why I try to hit space as fast as possible to minimize the time I spend creating heat at high velocity, high drag altitudes. Even with my ascent profile now I'm avg. 1000 degrees, and my craft can only take 1400 degrees (some parts).

[mythic_fci]

So it's a misconception you should wait to fire them until you are really high, if you need the thrust.

I'd slightly disagree with that. In my opinion, although you CAN fire them at lower altitudes and still get to orbit, it's just not efficient enough to run them alone until you get really high. Which is why most nuke-powered SSTOs are considerably light on design. BUT if you mean run them with the jets on, then I guess it's ok for beefier designs.

Edited May 25, 2014 by FCISuperGuy

[mythic_fci]

If you go that fast in thicker air druring ascent you're gonna burn up. That's why I try to hit space as fast as possible to minimize the time I spend creating heat at high velocity, high drag altitudes. Even with my ascent profile now I'm avg. 1000 degrees, and my craft can only take 1400 degrees (some parts).

You mean Deadly Reentry?

[Penguinhero]

READ!

What Ive Leaned from nuke only ssto's is that all my planes have to be going at least 1,300m/s to achieve a Munar landing and back. My current plane has 2 turbo jets and one nuke (like yours), wings a wing fuselage covering the fuel, and 4 Ram Air Intakes. lands 3 kerbals the moon and back.

Instructions:

1. Get To around 20,000M above sea level, Give or take 2,000M

2. Get to 1,300m/s

3. Pull To 45 Degrees

4. burn turbojets and nuke till jets flame out

5. burn nuke till apoapsis is at least 70,000m

6. burn flat till orbit in nearly around the planet

7. Burn at apoapsis to complete orbit

[Rune]

If you go that fast in thicker air druring ascent you're gonna burn up. That's why I try to hit space as fast as possible to minimize the time I spend creating heat at high velocity, high drag altitudes. Even with my ascent profile now I'm avg. 1000 degrees, and my craft can only take 1400 degrees (some parts).

Actually, that's how you minimize drag losses, by ascending as fast as possible at any given time, while not running over terminal velocity (which is where drag spikes). So fastest ascent to top speed is what I'm talking about here. And you are talking deadly reentry, which is a mod that not everybody uses (I, for example, don't). Apples to apples.

I'd slightly disagree with that. In my opinion, although you CAN fire them at lower altitudes and still get to orbit, it's just not efficient enough to run them alone until you get really high. Which is why most nuke-powered SSTOs are considerably light on design. BUT if you mean run them with the jets on, then I guess it's ok for beefier designs.

Depends on design. We could be talking about a pure rocket VTOL, and then the sooner you light them up to increase T/W the better. Notice how my post only references isp, but otherwise yeah, you are right, if you have airbreathers you'd better save the rocket juice for when they're not enough.

However, that could very well be at 10kms if you have a very low T/W plane on airbreathers, at that altitude air density drops a lot and wings suddenly work much worse and some designs can't keep on climbing without some assist to 20kms, where jet engines give their full thrust.

Rune. People tend to give design-specific tips as general rules, beware.

[XOIIO]

READ!

What Ive Leaned from nuke only ssto's is that all my planes have to be going at least 1,300m/s to achieve a Munar landing and back. My current plane has 2 turbo jets and one nuke (like yours), wings a wing fuselage covering the fuel, and 4 Ram Air Intakes. lands 3 kerbals the moon and back.

Instructions:

1. Get To around 20,000M above sea level, Give or take 2,000M

2. Get to 1,300m/s

3. Pull To 45 Degrees

4. burn turbojets and nuke till jets flame out

5. burn nuke till apoapsis is at least 70,000m

6. burn flat till orbit in nearly around the planet

7. Burn at apoapsis to complete orbit

So 1300m/s is good? I always gave up when I couldn't reach 1600m/s figuring it would be a failure.

I originally tried this with two rapiers, maybe I will again, but the thrust was so low it was extremely slow to gain altitude, at least this thing can take 4x phys warp.

[Pauly]

Here is your plane in orbit I changed nothing and I used mechjeb to steer it cause I'm to lazy to steer but not to lazy to help you get to orbit.

Might want to add a little more oxidizer if you are going to milk the turbojets as much as I did.

I will post a video of me getting to orbit with your plane when it is done uploading to youtube.

I hope this helps.

Edited May 25, 2014 by Pauly
adding video

[Hodo]

Interesting design, but like somebody pointed out before, Engine Nacelles make for extremely inefficient intakes (their primary purpose is actually supposed to be increasing fuel flow, and thus thrust- but the code isn't in place for that yet- much like precoolers currently have no function in the stock game).

I have to disagree and agree. Engine nacelles are inefficient, but they are also useful when you need the airflow for lower speeds. The SSTO I posted was an Attack/fighter SSTO, and it was designed to work at all altitudes without the use of Nukes and still be useful at low altitudes. So at sub 20km alts I would close the RAM intakes to reduce drag and just use the nacelles and radial intakes. They work like intake super sonic bypass valves on most modern fighter jets.

As for the LV-N and the LV-909 debate, right now he is just trying to get it to orbit. After that step you can work on refining and improving the design.

[XOIIO]

fixing a double post

Edited May 26, 2014 by XOIIO

[XOIIO]

WHOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Guess I just needed the right ship! This started out as a vertical one, then I just stuck some wings on it, got it into this orbit on my second try! Just needed to add a second RCS wheel and two more intakes, same flight profile as every other time I tried and it worked flawlessly! I do need to add a couple more stick anywhere RCS ports in key locations, and maybe add solar panels or just more of the thermal ones, and it will be perfect!

Funny thing is, I wondered why I had bill kerman instead of jebediah, when I got to the station frame I was testing I found out, since I used hyperedit to get it into orbit, I had forgotten to make it unmanned I'll send an unmanned plane up there to bring him home XD.

Also, having that refueling station higher up was much better, no need to set up a phasing orbit, just match the plane a little bit, and then Hoffman transfer right to it Plenty of fuel to spare!

https://www.dropbox.com/s/hrhyt0e2na3gzp6/bleh.craft

https://imgur.com/a/hCaNy#0

edit: hmm, how do you embed the album?

edit2: ah got it.

edit3: nope, never mind :/

Edited May 25, 2014 by XOIIO

[XOIIO]

This thing should also be able to take a little satellite/probe payload with it, I'll have to test it out.

Also, anyone have name ideas? I just hope they update this cockpit so that it has an interior and you can see out of it, it does kind of seem like the spaceplane stuff is a bit lacking right now. I also might want to make a version with the pointed cockpit in front so I can take 2 people into orbit, guess I'll just see as I use it.

[Hodo]

Javascript is disabled. View full album

edit: hmm, how do you embed the album?

edit2: ah got it.

edit3: nope, never mind :/

[ imgur ] hCaNy [ / imgur ]

Without the spaces.

[XOIIO]

Ah I see, found the post but thought it was the full url lol. Rescued jebediah, this thing gets some great reentry effects, I'll add them to the album.

[Pauly]

You are engaging the nuke to soon and cutting your speed run to short in my opinion.

In your new ship I made the same run and had almost double the delta v left after a 90k orbit.

In the video and pictures you can see it has used no oxidizer spent until my circularization burn.

The ship can also get a low periapsis without the nuke engaged as well cause it is so fast at high altitudes due to the amount of intakes you have.

It flies very well You just need to milk those turbojets a lot more than you are with as many intakes as you have and you will get a lot more delta v leftover once in orbit

As of right now this craft could go one way to almost anywhere. And return from most.

Javascript is disabled. View full album

Watch in HD to see anything lol

[XOIIO]

Alright, cool to know that I can get more fuel, I was using the nuke so that I could get my speed up a bit faster, but I'll work on reducing the time I need it. I suppose that will be more of a priority when we actually get charged for stuff when costs are introduced. I also didn't know you could get to 2000m/s in the atmosphere , I'll have to reduce my climb speed more earlier on.

[TeeGee]

[XOIIO]

That's an awesome little shuttle, but I draw the line at multiple intake clipping, you can make some awesome stuff that way but it just feels dirty.

[TeeGee]

That's an awesome little shuttle, but I draw the line at multiple intake clipping, you can make some awesome stuff that way but it just feels dirty.

Edited May 26, 2014 by TeeGee