Realistic SSTO

[stanleywinford]

Over the years, inhabitants of Earth have been watching the Kerbals with envious eyes. They have seen strange, beautiful, elegant, and gigantic aircraft enter orbit and return, all in one piece. With the development of SSTOs, space travel, once enjoyed only by a select few, is now cheap enough to be within reach of middle-class Kerbals.

Earthlings have watched long enough. It's not their fault that their planet is 10 times bigger, they say. They want their own SSTO--one that can reach orbit around their own planet.

Rules

You must install the RealSolarSystem mod. Your plane must reach a stable orbit around Earth AND return to the surface, all in one piece. I don't care if your craft actually looks like a plane or not. As long as it can reach orbit and come back in one stage, it's good.

Mods

Required: RealSolarSystem (http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/55145-0-24-2-Real-Solar-System-v7-2-8-14-14)

Optional: Feram Aerospace Research (I originally thought this would make the challenge easier, but Hodo disagrees, and I trust his judgment. Try it if you want.)

All other mods: You can only use stock parts, but feel free to use mods to design and/or fly the aircraft. Mechjeb's control module is OK, even though it's not stock. Needless to say, your mod can't change aerodynamics, planetary parameters, engine efficiency, or anything of the sort.

Heavy Lifter Scoreboard

We need a behemoth to haul heavy loads into orbit! The plane with the largest in-orbit mass wins.

Cutie Scoreboard

In the future, rich Earthlings will want their own spaceplane, to circumnavigate the world whenever they want. The plane with the smallest mass at launch wins, so long as it carries at least 1 Earthling.

Comment

In real life, a SSTO is considered marginally possible. However, KSP's air-breathing engines are far more efficient than in real life, and work at every airspeed. Air intakes, nuclear engines, and ion engines are overpowered compared to their real counterparts. I don't know if a SSTO is actually possible in RealSolarSystem KSP, but I know it's possible to come close.

Edited August 24, 2014 by stanleywinford

[Hodo]

Rules

You must install the RealSolarSystem mod. Your plane must reach a stable orbit around Earth AND return to the surface, all in one piece. I don't care if your craft actually looks like a plane or not. As long as it can reach orbit and come back in one stage, it's good.

Mods

Required: RealSolarSystem (http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/55145-0-24-2-Real-Solar-System-v7-2-8-14-14)

Optional: Feram Aerospace Research (makes challenge much easier!)

How does FAR make the challenge easier?

50% nerf to all air breathing engines.

aerodynamic failures.

with RSS you now have a properly scaled atmosphere it doesn't make anything easier if anything it balances it out.

[Cmdr. Arn1e]

Rules

You must install the RealSolarSystem mod. Your plane must reach a stable orbit around Earth AND return to the surface, all in one piece. I don't care if your craft actually looks like a plane or not. As long as it can reach orbit and come back in one stage, it's good.

Mods

Required: RealSolarSystem (http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/...m-v7-2-8-14-14)

Optional: Feram Aerospace Research (makes challenge much easier!)

You can only use stock parts, but feel free to use mods to design and/or fly the aircraft. Mechjeb's control module is OK, even though it's not stock. Needless to say, your mod can't change aerodynamics, planetary parameters, engine efficiency, or anything of the sort.

May need to rethink wording here...

[stanleywinford]

How does FAR make the challenge easier?

50% nerf to all air breathing engines.

aerodynamic failures.

with RSS you now have a properly scaled atmosphere it doesn't make anything easier if anything it balances it out.

I may be wrong, but as you scale up a craft, its mass scales as the cube of its size while its cross-sectional area scales as the square. Without FAR, drag is proportional to mass, aka to the cube. With FAR, it's proportional to the square. This means that the atmosphere becomes less of an impediment as you scale up with FAR, whereas in stock KSP, it's equally soupy at all scales.

[Hodo]

I may be wrong, but as you scale up a craft, its mass scales as the cube of its size while its cross-sectional area scales as the square. Without FAR, drag is proportional to mass, aka to the cube. With FAR, it's proportional to the square. This means that the atmosphere becomes less of an impediment as you scale up with FAR, whereas in stock KSP, it's equally soupy at all scales.

But you are failing to factor in the FAR jet engine nerf of 50% thrust on all air breathing engines with a reworked thrust curve.

This means before in stock KSP you can take a turbojet and a LV-1N and do a SSTO to Duna if you wanted to.

[Cmdr. Arn1e]

If you are including FAR/NEAR or whatever else, may as awell just have a seperate scoreboard for them!

[Hodo]

If you are including FAR/NEAR or whatever else, may as awell just have a seperate scoreboard for them!

Not arguing they should have seperate boards, but saying FAR makes things easier in RSS is a flat out lie.

[Bothersome]

I think this is an interesting challenge. I'll be watching to see if we have geniuses in our midst. I'll not attempt this challenge as I do not believe a real SSTO plane is possible. Not given the current fuel properties. I play in Realism Overhaul, which is basically Real Scale System with fuels and engines matching that of the real world. 7500 meters per second is a lot of push you're gonna need to get an orbit. This is after you get out of the atmosphere. Oh and that little trick that you might think you can get most of that while still flying in the atmosphere won't do you any good when your craft burns up right out from under you.

Granted you might find a way, IF you leave out Deadly Re-entry, but then why bother if you don't go as far as you can with simulating real physics?

[astropapi1]

You can only use stock parts, but feel free to use mods to design and/or fly the aircraft.

You know RSS isn't designed for the stock parts, right? That's one of the reasons people use procedural parts and "real-life" engine configs. You're not getting a lot of submissions unless you allow all mods and turn this into a showcase.

[stanleywinford]

I edited my original post so that it doesn't say FAR makes the challenge easier.

The reason I'm not making a separate scoreboard is because I don't expect many entries, considering the difficulty of this challenge.

[astropapi1]

I edited my original post so that it doesn't say FAR makes the challenge easier.

The reason I'm not making a separate scoreboard is because I don't expect many entries, considering the difficulty of this challenge.

Did you read my comment? You're better off making a thread in the spacecraft exchange for people to show their modded SSTOs for RSS.

RSS isn't made for the stock parts.

[stanleywinford]

I'm playing with Realism Overhaul too, and a SSTO is definitely possible with RO plus all of its required mods (including Deadly Reentry). In fact, right now I have a manned craft in a stable orbit that was launched in one stage--and it only has 3 parts! (You can probably guess which three.) If this challenge doesn't get any submissions, I'll probably make another challenge that requires RO, but I thought that would both be too easy (you can do it with 3 parts) and too complicated (you have to install at least 8 mods).

[stanleywinford]

Did you read my comment? You're better off making a thread in the spacecraft exchange for people to show their modded SSTOs for RSS.

RSS isn't made for the stock parts.

Yeah, I saw your comment, and I'll take your advice if nobody manages to complete this challenge.

[Bothersome]

Ah, my mistake, I was thinking "Plane SSTO", not the rocket variety. Yea, I know a rocket SSTO is possible.