Move Minmus to Duna's Orbit

[Scarecrow88]

I think the two moons around Kerbin serve a useful purpose for players that are new to the game. Mun is easy to get to and helps players develop landing techniques on an airless body with unforgiving gravity. The skills learnt landing successfully on Mun are useful when visiting other bodies in the system where chutes can't be used to get you safely on the ground. I believe Minmus is more useful for learning how to make adjustments to your flight trajectory in order to make a successful intercept with your target, due to it's inclined orbit and smaller SOI. Again, these are useful skills to have when going interplanetary for the first time as it's rare to get a perfect intercept when making your transfer burn leaving Kerbin.

[PB666]

The Mun is boring, no one cares about it.

Career mode, 2/3 rds of the science you will need to get done fast (kerbal elapsed time) is on the Mun.

[Geschosskopf]

I'd leave Minmus at Kerbin so you can blow through the tech tree easily and then get on to actually putting the high-end parts to productive use at other planets. I'd move Mun to GP2 along with Eeloo, then fill the space beyond GP2 with KBOs discovered with the awesome SENTINEL thingy

[AbacusWizard]

Kerbin having two moons is extremely useful for practicing advanced orbital maneuvers--it's like a mini solar system for figuring out how transfer orbits work.

Even if it weren't so full of delicious science points, I still love messing around on Minmus because

• the variety of landscapes make it visually interesting,

• the low gravity makes for easy repeat landings (refueling from an orbital depot) and efficient fuel mining operations,

• the flats are great landing zones and runways for spaceplanes (horizontal takeoff in a vacuum is awesome--bring your own lift)

and of course

• it's deliciously minty.

[Whirligig Girl]

Move Minmus to be like Cruithne, move Mun further out a bit, and switch Vall and Eeloo.

In all seriousness though, Minmus is a great "Practice Mun." It helps you learn some more advanced orbital mechanics while also allowing you to test your landing skills in a lower gravity environment. Not to mention how wonderfully Minty-Fresh it is.

- - - Updated - - -

Look at all these nobodies who care about the Mun... smh...

I think you're confusing Mun with Dres.

[Goddess Bhavani]

If I can be a bit immodest for a moment, I've helped a lot of newbs get into KSP and learn how to maneuver around, both here on the forums and in the #KSPOfficial IRC channel. It is much, much easier to walk someone through the steps to get to the Mun than it is to help them get to Minmus. The Minmus transfer is more complicated than the Mun one because of the plane change, and the encounter is tougher to get because of the smaller SoI and greater distance.

That plus a lot of people play career mode and don't initially have maneuver nodes available; in that case the difference in difficulty is greater still.

So totally this and I might add a couple points to the newbie accessibility and further learning curriculum if I may -

- The Mun is every KSP newbie's first experience in not just being Neil Armstrong, but opens his or her gateway to the outer planets too. For me, the discerning experience of a KSP career is not only landing on the Mun, but that of using a Mun gravity assist to get to Minmus in half the time with just a 100m/s for orbital correction. Seriously, if the Mun weren't this close, I would have never bothered how to plan and execute gravity assists and I would not have so much fun flying Level 1 micro shuttles to Minmus.

- The presence of the Mun close by encourages new players to aim for it and beyond. The realization that Minmus is an easier landing target due to the microgravity-like environment is a discovery everyone makes for themselves. People actually have to go there to know how good mint ice cream is, not just for the refreshing taste, but for the low dV requirements for landing and escape. A Minmus first landing is not without its challenges as a badly designed craft may not handle direct return from Minmus if not configured to handle the extremely high thermal loads imposed on the vehicle.

It thus does not matter that Minmus is an easier first landing target than the Mun, because this is knowledge we transfer from previous KSP experiences. It is important for new players to have achievable targets, the function of the Mun being so close by is an easy source of gravity assists that those new to space can experiment with cheaply (accessibility and low risk encourages experiential learning - which is 100% the point of KSP)

And that's my 2c. Don't fix what ain't broken, mod the solar system if greater realism of challenge is desired. For me, I'd make Minmus to have a comet-like orbit and put the Mun in place of Minmus just for fun, and I certainly have no desire to impart this change on everyone against their will without notice - the stock game affects a lot of people!

[LittleBlueGaming]

Guys, guys, guys. I think you're all missing something here.

My eyes!!!

[samstarman5]

If you want the solar system Burger King style then as smjjames says use HyperEdit.

Kerbin's two moons provide very good learning grounds for new players and continue to be good destinations for experienced players as testing grounds. Having two moons also says "Kerbin is not Earth" quite clearly to new users which I think is important. So maybe it would be nice to have a 2nd moon for Duna, but not Minmus, that needs to stay around Kerbin.

Heck with Duna. Give Ike a moon. Ike and Duna are practically a bi-planetary system.

[Rocket Farmer]

Both have their place.

When I start a new career I typically go for the Mun before I have any planning nodes. You can easily straight eyeball your transit as long as you know about how fast you need to exit kerbin from. After 3-4 career starts I can now hit it 100% of the time totally by eyeball. Try that with Minmas. Pretty much after your first orbit you can do a Mun flyby for great amounts of science.

On the other hand Minmas is eventually better for science as you can biome hop much better. So I progress through both.

[Sharpy]

Admit it the only reason Minmus is "less boring" is that it's much easier to get to, gives far more science, is far easier to return from and it actually allows more than one biome hop before a reasonably sized craft ends up with less Delta-V than is required. Oh and it's minty.

And there, I thought you'd just rant and miss the only actual reason.

Minty is Fresh! Fresh is Cool!

[More Boosters]

A poster above gave me a very good idea. A highly inclined orbit would do wonders, so you REALLY know how to plane change. You may even have to find out about bi-elliptical transfers so you can do an easier plane change along the way. It makes perfect sense! And then the extra science and low gravity is warranted. That would have to be at least 45 degrees, actually make it rotate the other way!

Maybe it could also wiggle up and down randomly too. Or maybe not.

[Edax]

How is it a little harder? Unless you just wanted to do a flyby, there's no situation in which a trip to Minmus takes more Delta-V than Mun. Far easier to land on and return from, also more science. Something is clearly off here.

Yes, Minmus is harder to get to when your new to the game. You have to learn about inclination and proper transfer windows to get to Minmus, unless you want to spend forever with the maneuver nodes. I don't even bother to try and intercept Minmus at an inclination anymore. The Mun on the other hand, is very easy to get to cause it has no inclination so there's no need to wait for transfer window, and you even get a handy, easy to use free-return trajectory. And I don't know about you, but I learned how to attain more delta-v out of my ships faster then I did trying to figure out the orbital map maneuver nodes. The Mun was the first place I landed probes on, (though my first manned landing was on Minmus since the Mun was good practice). In a way, both moons have their pros and cons, and both teach you about different aspects of the game. Minmus about navigation and the Mun about engineering.

[Alshain]

Yes, Minmus is harder to get to when your new to the game. You have to learn about inclination and proper transfer windows to get to Minmus, unless you want to spend forever with the maneuver nodes.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean by "transfer windows". You can launch a directly into Minmus' inclination twice a day, no transfer windows needed. It's still harder than the Mun of course, and most people do inclination changes from orbit before learning to direct launch to Minmus' inclination, but waiting for Minmus to come around into a transfer window with Kerbin's equator is probably the worst option.

[More Boosters]

Guys, guys, guys. I think you're all missing something here.

http://i.imgur.com/iB036su.png

My eyes!!!

[regex]

I'm not sure I understand what you mean by "transfer windows".

A transfer window is a period of time during which you can perform a transfer burn. Check out this Launch Window article on Wikipedia for more information.

You can launch a directly into Minmus' inclination twice a day.

Then you have correctly identified the two transfer windows to Minmus that exist per day. A window is just a period of time during which you can do something, in this case perform an efficient transfer burn.

[Red Iron Crown]

Launch windows and transfer windows aren't exactly the same thing though. There are two launch windows per day to go directly into the proper inclination for a Minmus transfer, after that a transfer "window" occurs once per orbit, just like the Mun. I use apostrophes there because a transfer window usually refers to the time when the phase angle is correct for a transfer between sibling bodies.

I think what Edax was referring to was launching into an equatorial orbit and transferring to Minmus at either the ascending or descending node, a technique for which there are only two good points in Minmus' orbit.

[regex]

Launch windows and transfer windows aren't exactly the same thing though. There are two launch windows per day to go directly into the proper inclination for a Minmus transfer, after that a transfer "window" occurs once per orbit, just like the Mun. I use apostrophes there because a transfer window usually refers to the time when the phase angle is correct for a transfer between sibling bodies.

Well, whatever, the point being that a "window" is a period of time during which you can do something and there shouldn't be any confusion regarding what it means. There are definitely transfer windows for going to the Mun or Minmus, the frequency is just much more common than, say. an interplanetary transfer.

[Goddess Bhavani]

I think what Edax was referring to was launching into an equatorial orbit and transferring to Minmus at either the ascending or descending node, a technique for which there are only two good points in Minmus' orbit.

It might be a waste of dV but all my Minmus probes go up in equatorial orbits then do plane change. I do this because I have had experiences in Beta trying to do inclined launches and finding out much later I launched into the wrong inclination. Ofc with Kerbal Engineer I don't have the problem of launching into the wrong angle, but without it the navball throws me off when it switches from surface to orbital mode and the heading is read differently.

For much heavier manned or persistent presence (ahem, stations) vehicles I now enjoy using the Mun for plane changes, after reading how lunar gravity assist has been used to save satellites launched in an improper orbit.

Anyways I think the Mun is perfectly positioned.... back in the days before maneuver nodes were ever implemented, I used to fly seat of the pants to Munar encounter all the time.

Going from "I don't know a thing about orbital mechanics" to impacting a rocket on the Mun gave endless elation years ago. A bit inspiring to learn how to do it a proper way, really, as retrograde direct ascent plowing into the oncoming mun is not exactly healthy

[Red Iron Crown]

There are definitely transfer windows for going to the Mun or Minmus, the frequency is just much more common than, say. an interplanetary transfer.

As in once an orbit?

[regex]

As in once an orbit?

Is that still a "period of time"? If I'm going to direct Hohmann to the Mun there is a good minute or so during which I can perform a 853m/s burn and get a Mun intercept. That's a transfer window.

[Caelib]

IMO, Minmus science yields need to be balanced compared to the Mun. One trip to Minmus with 2500m/s delta-V and you'll come home with 3000+ science. That same amount of fuel on the Mun will get you maybe 500.

[Alshain]

A transfer window is a period of time during which you can perform a transfer burn. Check out this Launch Window article on Wikipedia for more information.

Then you have correctly identified the two transfer windows to Minmus that exist per day. A window is just a period of time during which you can do something, in this case perform an efficient transfer burn.

That is incorrect. In order to be a transfer window you must transfer your orbit within that window. Launching to a specific inclination is not a transfer. You seem to not be understanding the difference between a Launch window and a transfer window. Hence my confusion, his implication was that he was waiting in an equatorial orbit for Minmus to come around and meet his plane so he could encounter Minmus without altering his inclination. This works, but is a huge waste of time.

[MalfunctionM1Ke]

The Mun is boring, no one cares about it.

But.. but.. I do care about it

[regex]

That is incorrect. In order to be a transfer window you must transfer your orbit within that window. Launching to a specific inclination is not a transfer.

Yep, I didn't pay enough attention to the initial post.

[Homusubi]

Minmus is much easier to land on and has more use in the late game. Mun has an umlaut and a bunch of easter eggs, plus IT'S THE MOON. I'd say it's even.