Is this going to fly?

[TheScareCake!]

Trying to build a shuttle

[Starman4308]

Trying to build a shuttle

https://fbcdn-sphotos-f-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xpf1/v/t1.0-9/1926895_931605123535688_2474606291963198507_n.jpg?oh=5348a3c41baabda1be09083d5755275d&oe=551DC199&__gda__=1423022424_cf37eeb3ccd36a01a923f1d3f45248cc

I assure you, put enough vertical boosters on something, and it will fly.

It might not fly long, but it will fly. If you want help figuring out if it will fly long, I would strongly suggest pressing spacebar.

[Wanderfound]

I assure you, put enough vertical boosters on something, and it will fly.

It might not fly long, but it will fly. If you want help figuring out if it will fly long, I would strongly suggest pressing spacebar.

Dangit, I was gonna say that.

Hitting T and Z might be advisable as well.

More seriously, for the OP: you're going to have serious CoM/CoT misalignment problems. Even if you've got 'em lined up on the pad, the weight shift as the fuel drains is likely to give your Kerbals a brief and exciting ride.

[SRV Ron]

A fine balancing act when constructing a scale shuttle. Due to the design of the real one, SRBs were used to boost much of the fuel load until staging. Then, the Shuttle main engines finished the burn just short of orbit. The real key was the tilt of the three main engines and their ability to gimbal over a range far wider them most stock KSP engines to compensate for the ever changing center of mass as fuel is burned during flight. That is going to be difficult to simulate successfully in KSP. Don't expect to do that with stacks of SAS's. The flight has to be controlled with vectoring the thrust with the main engines.

[Starman4308]

More seriously, for the OP: you're going to have serious CoM/CoT misalignment problems. Even if you've got 'em lined up on the pad, the weight shift as the fuel drains is likely to give your Kerbals a brief and exciting ride.

Doesn't help that stock engines have hilariously narrow gimbal ranges. RCS Build Aid could be used to help visualize CoM/CoT and net torque both full and dry, but in general I steer away from space shuttles due to "Why did NASA ever think this was a good idea". Horizontally-launched SSTOs work perfectly well in stock, and it shouldn't be too difficult to get significant rocket recovery in RSS (possibly using StageRecovery for first stages).

[LethalDose]

I would strongly suggest pressing spacebar.

This is always the best solution to this question.

[TheScareCake!]

It did after a few not-so-successful rides. I got it, you just have to compensate the com shifting with thrust, the more thrust - you pitch down, less - up.

[NeMeSiS]

I once got a shuttle lauch like that balanced perfectly, but now i just do it like this:

Launches fine with FAR, once in space the wings fold out and are strutted with some attachable KAS struts during EVA

EDIT: Flies like a ..... though, without air breathing engines you have pretty much 1 shot at landing (2 if you are lucky, did a low delta-V mission and didnt dump any fuel before landing). Also, the runway is a bit on the short side.

Edited November 16, 2014 by NeMeSiS

[rdwulfe]

EGGS.... IN... SPAAAAAAACE!

Haha, I always love launching a huge fairing like that.

[Aragosnat]

Well not only will center of mass be off and thrust too. But, that is why space bar as well as when building it. They have the ceter of mass and thrust toggel one can use. Used that to deploy a single rover from underneath a rocket. That forced the center of mass off unless I do it my normal way for deploying in pairs and off the sides.

Edit: Also the other good news is you can limit how much thrust the larger engine is pushing out too. Just as long as you keep gaining altitude.

[Torquemadus]

If you have some time to spare, you might want to check this out.

http://www.nss.org:8080/resources/library/shuttledecision/index.htm

This is an e-book I read a while back that discusses the design of the NASA Space Shuttle. I was particularly interested by chapter eight, which shows the different configurations that were considered.

http://www.nss.org:8080/resources/library/shuttledecision/chapter08.htm#intro