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Hey there, This will be the thread linked to my attempt at @Death Engineering challenge, which is a reboot from @sturmstiger The objective is to set an permanent outpost on Duna, complete a dozen of achievements and take into consideration a lot of requirements (minimum weight, habitat confort, shuttles..). It is challenge which, just like Constellation's challenge, asks for a lot of planning and forward thinking with design. Just like @michal.don, I'll post here so the main thread would not be flooded under tons of pictures and various reports. Questions, feedbacks, remarks are well appreciated The first task is to designed a Standard Launch Vehicle (SLV) to carry a Nominal Payload Mass (NPM) into 180*180 orbit maximum. Reusability and NPM will determine how often it is possible to launch a new payload so it is very important to plan everything according to Duna's transfer windows. I settled on a 87.5t. NPM which will allow me to launch 6 times before year 10 with a tiny margin. VEHICLES : SLV S4 15-3 This is the mighty SuperFour 15 nozzles under 3 bottles, which is a reusable SSTO rocket, a modified version of a 150t. lifter which is now able to put 87.5t. into 180*180 and land safely. It's easy to fly, has a huge 5m. fairing, requires only 43 parts and is very stable thanks to Vector's gimball. SLV 01 : Duna's Outpost Vermillion's Seeker SLV 02 : Kerbin Space Station, ISRU 2-g, more nuke pods SLV 03 : DunaSpaceStation, Outpost extension and 5 new ships ! SLV 04 : Habitat extensions, heavy rover, WoldhoundPod, tank and KERHS prototype Space Stations Kerbin Space Station Duna Space Station Habitats Shuttle systems DunaSpaceBus DeepSpaceTransit Evac vehicle Various Pods Dart-tugs Nuke Pods Heavy ISRU Rovers The world famous RoboTug Life Support SCORE : THREAD IN PROGRESS

Due to a major financial scandal, Kerbin's main supplier of prop engines can no longer deliver. The timing could not be worse as KSP is launching a new Duna programme, with a focus on exploratory aircraft that can deliver good science. Plans are afoot for serious fuel mining and processing infrastructure, but this is still costly in time and resources. Creating multiple fuel stations around the planet is not viable at this time. They need an aircraft with range. The challenge: Build an aircraft for Duna, and fly it as far as you can with the fuel you are carrying. The winner is the one who flies the farthest. The only rules are: 1. It must be rocket powered. No props or Kethane-powered mod jets . 2. It must carry a Mobile Processing Lab. 3. It must not go into orbit. Ceiling is 16,000 meters. 4. No drop tanks. Too expensive to replace and/or recover. 5. It must be a real plane, meaning it has lift and could take off and land multiple times. 6. Mods are fine, but the engines must be stock. Details: Cheat or Mission Builder yourself to any location on Duna. Fly your plane as far as you can, and when you land, hit F3 to show your total distance traveled. Any mods (other than mod engines) are fine except infinite fuel or anything that breaks the spirit of the challenge. Mods and stock parts will be two different categories. A plane is considered stock if it has no modded parts. Non-parts mods have no bearing on that. Your plane can be as big or small as you want it. It can have tons of stability enhancements or none at all. It can be piloted or probe cored, but you must have a full science crew in the lab. I suppose a really keen person could build a flying fuel processor and go forever (and serious kudos if they do), but the spirit of the challenge is single flight range and that is what you will be judged on. This idea came about while I was tooling around in Mission Builder, modifying a plane I built for Kerbin to see what I could do. I got a fair distance (well, for me, anyway) and I thought it would be cool to see how others solve this problem. Partly this is selfish; I want to learn from you all :-) On my to-do list for work is to get upskilled in Adobe Illustrator. It may take a bit, but I will create a badge for this challenge. My first attempt with the lab. Okay, but needs a lot of R&D.

So I decided to make some arts using PlanetMaker, which is a useful tool to create planet ideas, real planets, simulated planets, and even imaginary planets. I unfortunately can't show the results because the freaking thing won't let me for some reason. But hey, at least I can prove that links will work! Laythe Kerbin Mun Duna Eve Kerbol Water World Enjoy

So I have sent some probes to Jool and Duna, but I was wondering if anybody has some tips on getting Kerbals back from Duna, which I am going to try first. Whenever I get there, I never seem to have enough fuel to get back to Kerbin. I sent a probe Rover to Duna that I successfully landed, but there was no hope of getting back with the fuel and dV I had left. Any tips on making ships more efficient? Thanks!

Preamble. Good morning all. I have an idea for a collaborative story, a format that has worked on another game forum I spend some time on, and I am curious what those who value "story" here would think about it. The general premise is that "my" KSP is ready to attempt a manned (balled? no, can't do it) Duna flight, but that some major decisions need to be made about the program and a "proceed" call made. It strikes me as a moment in my game's history when some artistic drama could occur. So what I am asking here is if anyone would be interested in participating. What I envision is writing up a "history" of things to get the story to this point, then lay-out the present situation by having a main character (probably Gene) give a presentation and then open the floor for discussion. Other writers would then "introduce" their characters at the meeting, and we would all weigh in on the topic and debate. Eventually the meeting would conclude, and I would then "pay-off" everyone's participation by chronicling the ensuing mission(s). At this point I am only proposing this as a possible story- it will depend both on feedback and health (a faint concern), but at the moment I feel highly inclined to proceed. First post would probably be next week. So, would anyone be interested? (For what its worth, the following event occured in the same game, and would be part of the discussion's history;)

I am doing a manned mission to Duna and back. I have only one mod installed, which is Kerbal Alarm Clock. Here is my problem: when I am looking out into space from Duna orbit, FPS is excellent. When I look at Duna's surface, FPS crashes down to about 3 FPS. Here are my graphics settings: My "Max Physics Delta-Time per Frame" is 0.04; I have tried lowering it to 0.03 and even tried 0.12, and all attempts have resulted in no improvement. My computer specs: CPU: Intel i3-3120M (4 cores, 2.5 GHz) Integrated graphics (Intel HD 4000) 6 GB RAM OS: Xubuntu 18.04 (Linux) I have tried launching the 64 bit version of KSP, which resulted in the same amount of lag. I have also tried lowering the texture quality to 1/8. Moreover, I have tried disabling V-Sync and setting the pixel light count to 0. The game has been reinstalled, to no avail. Furthermore, I have noticed that CPU usage decreases when I look at Duna, which makes absolutely no sense at all, considering the extreme lag. Is there anything else I can do to get rid of this horrendous lag? It is difficult to land and takeoff with the lag. Thanks for any help!

https://www.quora.com/unanswered/I-wonder-what-is-the-reference-system-in-relation-to-the-Martian-landscape-and-more-precisely-the-mountains-on-the-surface-of-this-planet-Mars https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20180511212254AAZg1O2

Hey guys. I'm trying to plan a mission to Duna. Launch would be around day 26. Alex Moon's calculator states ejection angle 24 to prograde, delta V of 2002 m/s at phase angle of 124.11degrees. Yet when i set up a node with those parameters, I don't even get a close approach. Any advice is welcome.

Hello fellow Kerbalnauts, I'm playing on the PS4 so sadly no mods to help me calculate things for my problem. No more So I'm constructing a massive Duna ship ( think Discovery from 2001) It is being built in a 90 orbit of Kerbin. The total dry mass of the craft is 70 tons. 55.2 m in length I'm planning on using nuclear engines to power it. My question is how much fuel do I need, to leave LKO and get to Duna ( planning launch during Duna Kerban close approach) My craft has currently 3 empty Kerbodyne 7200 1 Kerbodyne 3600 and a Rockmax X200-16, all empty. Please let me know how I achieve my goal. Cheers, Gus Grizzom

So in preparation for a laythe space plane mission, I decided to fly 2 Kerbals to Duna and back as practice. Cos’ I’ve never really flown space planes before you see. Anyways I’ve been trying to land the damned thing for an hour now and Its 1:20am, but I can’t seem to make my approach any slower than 200m/s. I did bring drouge chutes, but I foolishy positioned them at the back of the plane, so deploying them causes me to nosedive. Thinking about it now, I may need to pump some fuel further back, because my plane might have became front heavy after I completed my transfer burn. But screw it, I’m going to bed now. If you have any advice it would be appreciated.

as above

Brief This thread will tell the tale of the brave four kerbals that traveled to Duna with kerbalism. The Kerbal Space Agency has mastered the Kerbin system and with regular flights to Mercury Station in LKO and Atlantis Base on the Mun the time is right to go out in the great void and travel to the red planet. Will they make it? or will they die in the process? So far only one kerbal died on the moon when the fission reactor of the Atlas 4 roving lab collided with the terrain, but there were many near misses. Time will tell if they are prepared enough. I will update during the mission and it will be picture heavy. Contents 1.) The dawn of the Odyssey 2.) Some assembly required 3.) Arrival and farewell presents 4.) The chosen ones 5.) The bucket of bolts 6.) The Magic Carpet Ride 7.) Return of the Falcon and the great silence 8.) The Great Abyss 9.) The kiss of the Dunatian 10.) The ride of the stung bull 11.) First flags 12.) The face of Duna 13.) Snowstorms 14.) A sparkle in the sky 15.) Household chores 16.) Flight of the red dragon 17.) The unexpected detour 18.) A hike on Ike 19.) Up, up and away 20.) The return 21.) Epilogue

So in my Sandbox I have been to the Mun and Minmus. Now I want to get to Duna, but there are so many ways, Like an Orion/Apollo style, The Martian style with a mothership, A simple giant rocket, etc. What is the Most efficient way? Or the Easiest?

I have a rocket that I want to show and ask about, but I can't get the attachment onto here. How do I upload the photo without using other sites?

Duna presents particular challenges for spaceplane design. The low gravity and thin atmosphere means that you need big wings, but once you have them, you tend to keep going forward until you drift down low enough and smack into a dune. In other words, landing can be a nerve-wracking process and it is hard to do it at all precisely. Similarly, take-off can be very dangerous as you need to build up a significant amount of speed to have enough lift to un-stick, and sufficiently flat areas for this aren't easy to find. The Brikoleur Aerospace Kombine (BAK) Zephyr solves this problem with full (Duna) VTOL capability. It carries a full science payload, a retractable solar panel for orbital use, and has reasonable crew capacity. On-surface refuelling requires the Klaw; it has an inline docking port for in-orbit refuelling. If precise positioning is not important, it's easiest and cheapest to make rocket-assisted short landings, where your hover rockets provide the lift your forward velocity doesn't. The same applies to take-offs. Craft: https://kerbalx.com/Brikoleur/Zephyr NOTE: Since the Zephyr is optimised for Duna, it is not able to even take off from Kerbin under its own power. If you want to play with it at KSC, replace the Terriers with Darts. It won't have the dV to reach orbit, but you should be able to land on the heliport at the top of the VAB. Atmospheric entry and flight to destination Set your Pe to around 10,000 m above the destination. Enter at a moderate pitch, ca. 30 degrees, and once Pe reaches the surface, control your precise landing spot with pitch (steeper = slower). Aim for a spot a few km before the target. Approach When approaching your target, slow down by making S curves or holding a steep pitch and climbing. Maintain a nose-up attitude, lower gear (which also opens the hover thruster bays), shut down the forward jets (Action 1), and start the hover jets (Action 2). You should be able to get to about 100 m/s while maintaining normal aerodynamic flight. Short landing Maintain a nose-up attitude (10-20 degrees) and gradually apply throttle to control your descent rate. Once you're down to a safe touchdown speed (recommended 40 m/s or less), lower throttle, touch down, and brake to a halt. Hover and vertical landing Pitch up sharply and apply throttle to the hover jets to kill your horizontal speed, activate RCS. Use RCS retrograde if necessary. Then switch control to up (Action 9), level out (use SAS Surface/Radial Out if necessary), control your altitude/descent rate with throttle and your horizontal vector with RCS; to move forward toggle the main jets on and off briefly (Action 1). Lower yourself to the surface by controlling throttle. Short take-off Activate both forward and hover thrusters (Action 1, Action 2), switch on RCS, apply full throttle, and pull up. Once you have enough forward speed, kill the hover thrusters (Action 2), retract gear and close the hover thruster bays, and fly yourself to orbit. Vertical take-off Activate hover thrusters (Action 2), set control point to up (Action 9), SAS to Surface/Radial out, RCS on. Then apply throttle to lift yourself off the surface. When at a sufficient altitude, activate forward thrusters (Action 1). When you have built sufficient speed, set SAS to normal mode, control forward (Action 8), RCS off, deactivate hover thrusters (Action 2), raise gear and close bays, and you're off.

Hi guys, So, I got my Kerbals to Duna, landed on it but since I'm not a huge pro, I used up all my fuel getting there, and now I have no chance of getting back up into orbit around Duna. I am entertaining the idea of not giving up on them, and since their lander has a docking port on the top, I was entertaining the idea of picking the craft up with another craft (docking essentially) and pulling them out into orbit. Would this be realistic and doable? Cheers

The Red Planet has captured the imaginations of space pioneers ever since the first days of high-powered rocketry. There's a long and auspicious list of proposed Mars missions, dating all the way back to Werner Von Braun's wildly optimistic plan to use over 400 launches to construct a massive artificial-gravity space station for Mars colonization transport. Any of us who have played KSP for a while can probably put a single-launch mission of arbitrary size on Duna easily enough, because Moar Boosters. However, the real world doesn't work like that. You can't just add more boosters; typically, mission planners have to work within the capabilities of existing (or planned) launch vehicles, which can only throw a certain amount of mass into orbit at once. As a result, most of the proposed Mars mission plans involved some degree of in-orbit assembly. The challenge is to design and execute a flags-and-footprints Mars mission with the lowest-massing payload per launch. You can assemble your mission using up to five separate launches; the goal is to make each of those orbital payloads as small as possible. There is no bonus for using fewer than five launches. For example, if you use four orbital payloads massing 8 tonnes, 12 tonnes, 6 tonnes, and 9 tonnes, then your score is 12 tonnes. If you use three orbital payloads massing 4 tonnes, 7 tonnes, and 14 tonnes, then your score is 14 tonnes, even though you did it in fewer launches with lower total mass. Obviously, lowest score wins. Thus, the incentive is to make all the launches roughly the same size in order to maximize the amount of mass you get into orbit while minimizing the size of any one launch, just like real-life mission planning requires you to work within the payload capacities of existing launch vehicles. This will require clever planning, so think ahead! A few rules to keep things more true-to-life: You can use whatever mission architecture you want, but it needs to have at least three Kerbals delivered to Duna orbit and at least two delivered to the surface. Crew must be sent up in the final launch from Kerbin. The transfer and lander (or whatever you use) must have actual crew space. It's fine to use command seats for rovers or for a separately-landed ascent vehicle. On-orbit payload is anything that goes with you toward Duna. If your upper stage is jettisoned after reaching LKO, then it's part of your launch vehicle, not your payload. If you refuel the upper stage to use for your transfer burn, then it's part of your payload. Assembly in LKO means assembly between 70 and 200 km. No ions except for unmanned probes, and then only for orbital adjustments (e.g., no spiraling out over the course of months). If you want to use nukes, you can do so, but only before leaving Kerbin's SOI. NERVAs can't be reliably restarted after a long period of time. ISRU can be used, but with some restrictions: Astronauts can't wait forever for ISRU, so if you manufacture your own fuel and oxidizer, you'll need to send an unmanned ISRU unit ahead of time. If you bring your own liquid fuel and only want to manufacture oxidizer, it's fine to have the ISRU unit on the manned lander (it's considered feasible to do this for Mars missions since cracking LOX out of the Martian atmosphere is straightforward). If you take this route, you can turn on infinite fuel when you activate your Convert-O-Tron (no need to use a drill). If the ascent vehicle lands on Duna separately from the landing craft, then you must bring a rover or other vehicle to take your crew from the lander to the ascent vehicle; no hundred-mile treks. You can earn bonuses to improve your score: On Tongues of Fire. Use no chutes; propulsive landings on both Duna and Kerbin. 10% decrease in highest payload mass. Conflicts with Wing It. Wing It. Winged, rolling landings on Duna and Kerbin. 5% decrease in highest payload mass. Conflicts with On Tongues of Fire. Old School. No nukes or ions. 3% decrease in highest payload mass. Brute Force. Assemble a Direct Ascent vehicle in LKO; no ISRU, no propellant transfer, no Duna orbit rendezvous. 12% decrease in highest payload mass. Conflicts with Loop the Loop & Justin Case. Slow Climb. Put ladders on your vehicles, if necessary, so you don't have to jetpack around on the Duna surface. 4% decrease in highest payload mass. Elon Style. Make the whole system fully reusable without using nukes, ions, or airbreathers. 25% decrease in highest payload mass. Conflicts with Justin Case & A Solid Plan. Stayin' Alive. Bring extra living space (at least one extra seat per Kerbal) for the transfer to and from Duna. 18% decrease in highest payload mass. Loop The Loop. Make your transfer vehicle a fully-reusable solution that can brake back into Kerbin orbit and be used again for the next trip. 15% decrease in highest payload mass. Conflicts with Brute Force. Consistency, Good Sir. Make all of your launches with the exact same launch vehicle. 6% decrease in highest payload mass. Justin Case. (NEW) Provide your crew with a separately-landed ascent vehicle as a reliable way to get off Duna (inspired by The Martian). 18% decrease in highest payload mass. Conflicts with Brute Force & Elon Style. A Solid Plan. (NEW) Make the Duna Ascent Vehicle (whether separately-landed or not) solid-fueled to orbit. 9% decrease in highest payload mass. Conflicts with Elon Style. They See Me Rollin'. (NEW) Bring a rover for your crew to get around Duna. 15% decrease in highest payload mass. If you find you need more than five launches, that's fine, but you'll have to assess a 15% penalty for each additional launch to represent the added real-life cost of adding an additional launch contract. There is not, however, a bonus for doing it in fewer than five launches. No part mods for the actual Duna package, although you can use part mods for your launch vehicle if you like. I may continue to add additional bonuses to enable increasingly-lower scores as the challenge goes on. Good luck! Smallcraft Leaderboard: Largecraft Leaderboard (20+ kerbals): Differences: Entries must have 20 or more kerbals. At least 2/3 of your crew must land on Duna. Stayin' Alive only requires that you have one extra seat for every 2 kerbals. You divide your total score (after bonuses) by half the total number of kerbals you take.

Hi, Using the oft-recommended KSP Launch Window Planner (http://alexmoon.github.io/ksp/), I'm attempting to set up a mission that will take a very aggressive (totally non-Hohmann) transfer to Duna. The idea is to shave time off the transfer (and depart a good ~80-100 days before the planets are "ideally" aligned) by spending a lot more delta-v than would be "optimal". I'm about to unlock the ISRU converter and build out a Mun mining base with Extraplanetary Launchpads, so my thinking is "fuel is cheaper than time". (I don't want to time-warp through the long coast because I've got lots of contracts and station stuff to keep me busy in the meantime back in the Kerbin system.) I've built a ship with about 5300 m/s of delta-v, and have been doing dry runs of the mission in a sandbox save. Figuring I could use aerocapture to avoid the most expensive part of the trip (the braking burn at Duna periapsis to get into orbit), I put almost all of the delta-v (5000 m/s) into the ejection burn from Kerbin and used the rest to fine-tune my approach, getting a ~13km Duna periapsis on the flyby, which I've read should be enough to aerocapture. However, my best-laid plans were shattered when I actually hit the atmosphere and my entire ship burned up almost instantly. :-) In retrospect this shouldn't have been a surprise, since the navball told me my orbital speed was well over 8000 m/s when I hit the atmosphere. (Yeah, this was probably a terrible idea.) So I tweaked the design and practiced a few more aerocaptures. I found that if I use the engines to brake down to an orbital speed of 2600 m/s when I hit the atmosphere, my design can survive (even without any heatshields). But that needed a lot of delta-v, and the rocket was getting ridiculously huge; I wanted to do better. So I slapped one of the big 10m (stock) inflatable heatshields on the bottom of my lander and tried again. However, it still burned up almost instantly. It's like the heatshield wasn't even there. :-( (In fairness, some non-critical bits of the lander were clipping through the bottom of the heatshield, but if that were the only problem, I'd expect everything behind the heatshield to survive.) What am I missing here? I was sure the heatshield would solve the problem, because I've seen a Scott Manley video where he was playing RSS and aerobraked at 10 km/s on Earth coming back from a lunar free-return; surely 8 km/s at Duna should be easier??? Thanks. :-)

So I am trying to get to duna with as little delta v usage as possible. Is there an efficiënt and doable way to use gravity assists to get to duna? I know of the oberth effect (sorry if I misspelled it). I just need to know how i can do an efficiënt gravity assist to duna. thx Edit: thanks for the comments so far. But to clarify, I do not want to refuel. An idea: would it in theory be possible to get myself in a 10% slower orbit than kerbin and then use a kerbin gravity assist. And would this even be feasable .

I watched @Matt Lowne's Hard Mode submission for the Reddit Roads to Duna challenge and wondered if I could do the same thing with a space plane. And not just launching the same space plane five times, but launching that thing once, and servicing it at each landing. Channeling my inner @Cupcake..., I came up with this. I'm still uploading as I post this and I have two copyright disputes to submit, so please bear with any delays. Matt's the trail blazer though; the module design is almost all his. But think about what that crew has to do each time you hit that Launch button. Not to mention @Thrimm's original LTS Kestrel design made this possible. Remarkably, after recovering all support craft and crew, the mission cost less than the space plane used to send it up there. But I'd rather not spend four days of off-time making another one of these... where does Cupcake Landers get the time to do these?

I've been meaning to go to Duna for a while now. I made a custom flag and sent several probes, but never got around to sending any kerbals. But the other day I was watching some Statzenblitz videos and thought to myself, 'Screw it, I'm going to Duna." After about 5 minutes of work, I had a Duna ship. There was some krakening with the launcher, but after a revision and turning on autostrut, everything was just fine. I originally kept the booster leftovers on the ship for extra delta owV, but when I switched back to the ship, they krakened out, so I ejected them. After waiting in orbit for a year and a half, the ship leaves for Duna. The ship on the edge of Duna's SOI. After a braking burn and some circularization, the ship was left in a 160km orbit, and the lander was detached from the ship. It was here that I realized the heat shield obstructed the lander's engine. It was promptly dumped. I remembered the parachutes! They slowed the lander down to 20m/s. The landing went smoothly. Success! Also, I forgot Jeb. The kerbals ascend. The lander returns to the transfer ship. Here, leftover liquid fuel was transferred to the transfer ship. The lander was then abandoned. The ship leaves Duna for Kerbin Burning to slow down. The re-entry periapsis was 35 km. Later, the Kerbal Space Program would face lawsuits for improper disposal of nuclear material. I remembered the parachutes again! Mandatory after-flight shot. Total mission time was about 3 years. Destiny fulfilled.

One wise kerbal once said, " Reach for the stars, and you will be successful." So, the KSP took it literally and decided to reach for the stars with their "amazingly awesome" spacecraft. The Challenge: Do the Orion missions listed below Orion Command module should be accurate and have 3 seat for stock, 5 seats for modded if possible. Following bonuses apply to all: Chute-O-Matic 3000 -- Have three main chutes and two drogue chutes, just like the real Orion does. * + 15 points * If using mods, and restricted to less, please note that in your submission post. Then, I may give you an exception. If not noted, but in the aforementioned situation, you WILL NOT get the bonus Note: You must complete previous mission to continue on to the next one. EFT-1 Badge: Go into a highly eccentric orbit of Kerbin to test high speed reentry Exploration Mission 1 Badge: http://imgur.com/a/PIVJx Build an SLS Block 1 launcher and mate an Orion Spacecraft to it. Then send them to the Mun (Orbit Only). Europa Clipper Build the SLS Block 1B Cargo and launch a probe to fly-by Laythe multiple times. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Deep Space Gateway (DSG) Mission Objective: Assemble a ship to go to Duna using the SLS in elliptical polar Munar orbit with AP above Munar south pole. Also, develop the SLS Block 2 Cargo and Block 1B Crew. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ MISSION OBJECTIVE (REQUIRED) +50 points ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ PHASE 1 EM-2 to EM-5 PHASE 2: EM-6 to Duna mission More Missions Coming!

NOTE: PHOTOS ARE LINKED FOR EASIER VIEWING AS EMBEDDING CAUSES ISSUES CHAPTER 1: K.S.S Valiant The EVA From Hell The Mystery Of Monban Station, Or How Jeb Wasted Millions In Five Minutes Icy Ike, But Catla Wants Ike-Cream The Duna Descent Work, Work, Work Home Away From Home Exploration, Part 1 Exploration, Part 2 Shuttling All The Way Icy Ike, But Catla Gets Ike-Cream A Grey Turn Of Events CHAPTER 2: Hello To Nowhere, Part 1 Hello To Nowhere, Part 2 It all happened one day... Jeb, Nacy, Catla, and Jonlong set out for the 'big orange thingy' in the sky. Boarding the 'Vixen', they soared through the atmosphere and into space, leaving Kerbin behind. It was going to be a long time... https://photos.app.goo.gl/KEjxauXMc7oocOSi1 'Yippee! I'm going to space!' Jonlong blurted out. It had been his first time in space. In no time, they had reached a stable, 97 - 103km orbit, and could rest for a few hours. https://photos.app.goo.gl/CLJcLdsa3r6mIVig1 'Hold on, we need to dock with KerbPort to resupply and refuel', Nacy, who was the mission commander, instructed them. 'But until them, we can float around in here, if you want'. 'Yay!' Jonlong enthusiastically replied. Soon, they broke out the cans of Jool-Aid, Crater-Cookies, and of course, snacks, and were floating around the crew cabin. After what seemed like five minutes (it was really five hours), Nacy informed them to get ready for docking. 'Docking in 1 minute, open port'. '30 seconds, Jeb, engage RCS'. Jeb engaged the RCS, and small white puffs came from the thrusters. 'And....we're docked!'. https://photos.app.goo.gl/tpTYwoLMwNJZqvYP2 Now, they would refuel and re-supply, switch to another craft (The 'Valiant'), and be on their way to Duna.

So since I've started playing I've somehow never launched a proper mission to other planets (other than the odd probe). I got back into KSP a while ago thanks to adding a pile of mods that add the depth I was after (mainly everything and anything USI and Near Future) and I've now decided that a massive mission to Duna sounds like a plan to step up from my multiple 20 kerbal colonies on the Mun and Minmus. Currently I'm figuring something along the idea of a Martian style mission - probe dropped supplies ahead of the mission with a minimum duration on the surface of 30 days (just cause). Basically this all boils to a rather simple question - assuming the stock solar system - roughly how long sounds like a good budget for life support supplies / habitation? I reckon I need to allow at least 300 days for the transfer there plus surface mission time (30 days) but when is the best launch window for return? Is this going to be the expeditionary mission I'm planning on or should Jeb and co be planning for a year or more sat there?

Hi everyone! I just wanted to share my latest and best creation, real life Lockheed Martin's Mars Base Camp. For those of you who don't know what it is, I recommend you watch this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLpZUMfIJX0&t=72s You can watch more of my content on my YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdCcDVpmo_ZRyYNObtKZhfA I had to use many mods (really, MANY mods), so many that I don't even remember which ones are needed for this vessel, I even had to modify some to change part sizes so I can't provide a download link because it would be useless. Nevertheless, enjoy the photos and please let me know what you think! Mars Base Camp was just finished around the Moon Mars Base camp arrived on Mars and Ronie Kerman is enjoying the spacewalk I kind of invented how the Martian lunar exploration may work based on the images provided by Lockheed Martin, I hope I got it right. Dammit, a micrometeorite just hit the fuel tanks, let’s check them… We may not be landing on Mars yet, but we are not leaving before a visit to Deimos Ronie is eager to collect some surface samples We descend during a beautiful Martian eclipse And we start the exploration of a small new world Good news, astronauts just got back from their mission with a lot of valuable data Time flies, we’ve already spent a year on the Martian system and we have to leave, but don’t you think this is all, the next time we come here it will be to land. It feels great to orbit your own giant piece of dead rock again Astronauts undock the Orion from the Mars Base Camp The crew prepares for a safe ride home I hope you liked it, it was quite a lot of work (and the damm thing wanted to keep blowing up and falling appart) haha.