Poland can into Space!

[Kadrian]

As you probably guessed, this challenge should not be taken too seriously, although I think it is well balanced for people who know how to build space planes, and might even be a bit on the difficult side for beginners.

Your objective is to send Poland into space (aka orbit with both apoapsis and periapsis > 70000m) with the materials available. You have the following parts at your disposal:

MANDATORY (Poland has spent copious amounts of time and money finding these, so there is only one each available):

- One red tank (Rockomax Jumbo-64)

- One manned pod (The external command seat is NOT an option; I advise using the MK 1 Lander capsule)

- One R.A.P.I.E.R. engine, toggled as you like, you might even want to use an action group

OPTIONAL (These parts just happen to lie around, you may use as many as you please):

- Structural wings (aka Wing connectors; you know, the rectangular ones that look like painted plywood)

- Standard control surfaces (you know, the rectangular ones that look like painted plywood sawn in half)

- Small gear bay (I just can't make you save on these, it would be cruel)

- Ox-Stat photovoltaic panels (weight- and dragless part, afaik, so make sure you have power)

PENALIZED (Poland only has a limited amount of euromonies, so spend it wisely. The economic system of KSP v0.23.5 applies, so use them now and pay for them later)

- Any Rockomax Brand adapter (Don't know why these cost money? You will find out.)

100 €

- EAS-4 strut connectors (This is just the raw metal price)

5 € each

- XM-G50 radial air intake (Made from pressure cookers, and those are not cheap)

20€ each

FORBIDDEN (Just unavailable. If you use these parts, you are a ... spy for the enemies of Poland or something).

- EVERYTHING not mentioned above. I am open for suggestions, provided they keep the spirit of the competition or lead to extremely funny results

Since Poland also has a gambling problem, the following bets have been placed:

- You will receive 1000 € for completing the mission

- You will receive 500 € for bringing back the pilot alive after a successful mission

->-> + 200 € for keeping the vessel intact

->-> + 100 € for landing on either the KSC or island runway

- You will be deducted 100 € if you kill the pilot (so just show a screenshot of Jebediah in orbit before making him crash in front of our eyes)

- You will receive 100 € for starting the mission with a completely full tank

- You will receive a varying amount of € (max 100) based on how much your vessel resembles the polish winged Hussars (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_hussars)

- You will receive a varying amount of € (max 100) based on how much your vessel resembles the polish red brick

- You will be deducted your parts count in € (The mandatory and optional parts will be deducted as well, to keep things simple. Yes, I know, how come free stuff isn't free... just google TANSTAAFL).

- You will be deducted 10 € for using informational mods (KER, MechJeb)

- You will be deducted 500 € for using physics-altering mods (FAR etc., although it might even be more difficult...)

- You will be deducted 2000 € for using anything that follows Alt+F12. Debts are to be paid to my PayPal-account.

Since I do not have the time to visit the forum hourly or sometimes even daily, this challenge will be peer-reviewed:

Please make sure to document your attempt sufficiently to be reproducible by someone who has nothing but your report and your vessel.

YOU WILL SCORE YOURSELF, so everyone else is invited to check for discrepancies between what people claim and what seems plausible based on the record.

Everyone who has finished the challenge will have editor status and can veto submissions from being accepted until the author has proven that his claims are valid. I will be the first editor, after a while we will maybe get to the standard overzealous sausage-fest we all love and cherish.

The challenge can of course be beaten, I will post a mission log in about 2 weeks (for suspense and to support different approaches) or mail it to anyone interested / in doubt.

The SHA256-hash of the craft that made it is

$ cat Poland_release.craft | sha256sum 
b7384d5cef496c668799de969806d66643a3a93243d52d1683c4161fe6c35938

I will try not to edit this post so hopefully grammar and spelling are not too bad. I will reserve the post below for a scoreboard.

Again: If I don't answer within a few day's time, it probably means I have a lot of work to do. It doesn't mean I have lost interest.

- - - Updated - - -

<reserved>

[Streetwind]

Honestly if Polandball needed a tank, he should just have asked Germany... *audience boos and jeers and throws eggs and tomatoes* ...ouch!

In all seriousness, this should be a fun challenge to watch. I especially like the extra bonus for resemblance to a Polish Hussar... with people assigning their own scores... I'm predicting massive hilarity.

[Kadrian]

Honestly if Polandball needed a tank, he should just have asked Germany...

nice

(filler to get to 10 characters)

[rtxoff]

<reserving the space for my entry which will follow soon>

[SuperWeegee4000]

- You will be deducted 2000 € for using anything that follows Alt+F12. Denbts are to be paid to my PayPal-account.

Fixed.

forum pls quotes count as characters

[FanaticalFighter]

That... is an awesome polandball comic.

[mr_yogurt]

I've never heard an american use the term "fiver". I thought that was a Europe thing.

[SuperWeegee4000]

I've never heard an american use the term "fiver". I thought that was a Europe thing.

We use it all the time.

[mr_yogurt]

We use it all the time.

....I am an american and I've never heard it used by a fellow american. Maybe it's different for different parts of the US?

[SuperWeegee4000]

Not sure. I've heard the term "fiver" used all over.

[Kadrian]

Hi folks,

As promised, here is the proof of concept for the challenge. The plane reached a stable orbit with around 100 m/s delta-v left, although I didn't finish the landing since version 0.24 was released around that time and I started a new career with different saves.

I will maybe do some score calculations in the near future, but since this thread is pretty much abandoned, I guess it's not worth the effort.

The craft file can be found here (I hope). Enjoy the slideshow.

Javascript is disabled. View full album

[Naten]

....I am an american and I've never heard it used by a fellow american. Maybe it's different for different parts of the US?

Fiver.

You were saying?

[mr_yogurt]

Fiver.

You were saying?

I didn't hear that.

I read that.

[sal_vager]

Kadrian, you've made Sticky challenge thread for September, congrats

[TheKutKu]

I'm working on the challenge!

The Space Hussars!

Iit isn't ready however.

[Wanderfound]

How tightly are we defining "manned pod"? Spaceplane cockpits okay?

What about FAR and DR?

[cantab]

Pretty solid entry from the OP. I goofed around with this myself a bit but never got far. Although that's rather a lot of control surfaces, are you sure infinigliding was unimportant?