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Space Shuttle

Stock KSP. This is my personal replica of a generic space shuttle. Just like in real life, its not a very efficient career choice but it DOES work.

This is a difficult craft to fly if you don't follow these steps.
1- Upon liftoff, tilt the ship back 5 degrees. This will counter-balance the thrust to weight ratio and set you up for a proper gravity turn.
2- Discard stages when they deplete. The main booster (large middle one), has too much thrust when it gets to space sometimes. If you follow the next step and the craft still goes into a spin, cut throttle to 0%, discard the booster, then go back to 100% throttle.
3- When you reach 60-70K meters above Kerbin's surface, the main booster will overpower the shuttle. Active the third shuttle engine at this time to counter-balance the thrust.
4- When re-entering, try to go as shallow as possible. Just like the real shuttle, it hates steep entries, and sudden movement. It's center-balanced so if you aren't careful you'll go into a flat-spin. If this happens, the drogue chutes should be able to assist you in regaining forward flight.
5- Upon re-entry, extend airbrakes and pitch nose up 10-15 degrees. This helps the belly of the shuttle absorb more of the momentum to slow your decent.
6- if overheating of the airbrakes occurs, retract for a few seconds before re-deploying. If overheating of the ship occurs, then your re-entry speed was likely too high. Pitch nose up further, or begin flat spin as a last resort.
7- Retract airbrakes when going in for the landing. It likes to yaw a bit so you can turn up the tail limiter at this point if you'd like.

This is a more efficient and easier to pilot re-design of an earlier version I had that sent very large payloads into space. Basically, anything that can fit in the cargo bay, can get to orbit.

I hope you enjoy. This took me many hours to perfect to this point!

Leave any reccomendations, comments, or questions below. I'd love to see what people think. Tell me if there's anything else you'd like to see me design. Been working on a Dragon capsule but not sure if I am going to continue with it or not.