FlyingPete

Things like a long term mission to Jool and its moons is where the ISRU equipment would come into its own. There is a balance to be struck somewhere in that you have weigh up (quite literally) the ISRU, mining landers etc against carrying more fuel from Kerbin. For short-term 'flags and footprints' type missions, it's not really worth it. Set up a base on Duna though, and you have a source of fuel on site to power exploratory missions, making the base self-sufficient in the long term. I've sent a long-duration mission on its way to colonise space itself- there's a large ship that will rendezvous with asteroids and mine them for fuel. No long-term destinations, though depending on what trajectories it ends up following, it might end up at Dres or Duna/Ike for a while.

If you can get to Mun and Minmus, you should also be able to nip just out of Kerbin's SOI to do 'in orbit high over the Sun' science experiments. Then turn about and head back for Kerbin.

I got bored of playing Orbiter

"In other news, an experimental 3-wheeled rover has apparently gained sentience and fled to the mountains west of KSC. Hikers are advised to approach with extreme caution..."

...Which makes it ideally placed for minimum-dV fuel drops to both Duna and Jool! Ideal for resupplying long-duration missions at both

I can see a Dres-based mining station working in a story. There could be a surface base and a bunch of mining craft to go and drill for ore on the asteroids. It would be manned by some hardcore oil-rigger type guys (including a Bruce Willis expy, obviously)

I've never been to Dres (see Felsmak's explanation) but I might go there soon. With its asteroids it now has lots of moons

In the absence of fuel hoses, the best way is to make a fuel truck that can drive around and supply fuel to a landed ship. It also makes precision landings somewhat less critical. All my rovers on Minmus have always been lacking in traction due to the low gravity, so here I'd probably equip the fuel truck with RCS thrusters to aid control. Hanging around a fuel refinery, operating in this way is hardly a problem.

One alternative is to have a refuelling depot in orbit of the Mun. You can launch a craft with just enough fuel to get there, then refill the tanks at the Mun and go interplanetary from there. Do a two-stage transfer burn that first ejects from Munar orbit and drops your Kerbin periapsis to a low altitude, then at that periapsis burn to eject from Kerbin. The interplanetary ship can be slightly smaller as you effectively start with an apoapsis at the Mun's orbit. You could work around Minmus directly, but the longer orbital period and inclination makes it a bit trickier to get a transfer set up.

I was actually quite surprised it worked at all to be honest. I completely guessed how much fuel to put in the boosters' tanks, and it worked out about right. Likewise there's enough fuel on the orbiter for completing the ascent, a bit of maneuvering to rendezvous in LKO and for a deorbit burn. For the wings I just went with what looked about right- just a large delta wing with a 'structural wing type A' in front of it, plus canards at the cockpit. The landing was 'interesting' as I ended up coming down in some mountains. I managed to glide clear of the peak and come down in the rolling hills on the other side. The cargo bay, cockpit and a few other parts landed in a separate but non-explosive manner... If I can get the landing right, and pretending that the boosters land safely and are recovered, it's 100% reusable

So I made my first successful attempt at a Mk3 cargo plane that can reach orbit I went for a two-stage design, with wing-mounted boosters that carry their own airbreathing engines, the air intakes and the fuel required for the jet-powered phase of the ascent. Liftoff from the runway at KSC. The main orbiter is basically a cargo bay with two short rocket fuel tanks fore and aft. The drop pods are drained of oxidiser in the hangar, and feed both their own Whiplash jet engines and the RAPIER hybrid engines on the orbiter. At about 20km, the engines engines start to die, and ideally this is where the drop pods' fuel supplies are exhausted. They are jettisoned, taking with them the two jet engines, ram air intakes and the empty tanks. Now running in closed-cycle mode, the RAPIER engines continue the ascent to orbit. The pods are equipped with parachutes, which theoretically should allow them to be recovered. The plane is by no means optimised, but it does nonetheless work. I think it could be rebuilt into a crew bus with relative ease.

A lower orbit will be more efficient for transferring fuel from Minmus to LKO, since you can aerobrake to shed most of the excess velocity. A lower orbit means less delta-V to bring the periapsis up out of the atmosphere at rendezvous. The lower altitude makes it simpler to build and operate a SSTO crew shuttle too. For Kerbin system operations, this is what I'd do. However, if you're going interplanetary, it's worth considering that with a higher orbit, you can first make a retrograde burn with your spacecraft to lower your periapsis, and thus make use of the oberth effect as well as the higher initial energy you get from a higher orbit. Pros and cons to both approaches.

Build a permanent mining base at Dres. It's a likely place for economic colonization given that there's plenty of asteroids to extract ore from. Eve's another good place for a colony mission. Exploration is so much simpler there when you don't have to bring the crew back to Kerbin. Set up a base and periodically drop supplies and equipment for expansion. If you're looking to explore the Jool system, Vall is probably a good place to establish a base. Low gravity and lack of atmosphere makes launching missions to explore the rest of the moons relatively simple. Given that Laythe has liquid water and an oxygenated atmosphere, I wouldn't send anything other than sterile probes there. You wouldn't want a Kerbal's discarded snacks to contaminate potential indigenous life form readings. Best to keep it under quarantine.

I've done something similar, only with a station at the Mun/Minmus as well. Crews get shuttled to the Kerbin station, a transfer ship brings them to either moon's orbital station, then landers based at the station go from there to the surface. I would launch the ship with sufficient fuel on board to get to the refuelling station i.e. the tanks will be almost empty by the time you get there. Alternatively, you could launch a ship with full tanks but not enough of them, with docking ports on the ship. You can then dock additional tanks to the main craft, and drop them as they are emptied during the mission.

It's simple enough to build an all-monopropellant lander with the O-10 engines, so it should be possible with the RCS thrusters. Control may be more difficult though. In fact, with the built-in propellant tanks in the command pods, it can be more efficient for Minmus.

Landing on Eve is simple enough, it's getting back again that's the hard part. Consider sending the crewed ship to Eve orbit only, with a side trip to explore Gilly. You can deploy a separate probe or rover to land on Eve and transmit science back.

Not forgetting Sisko, Kira, Bashir, O'Brien, Worf (again), Dax and Odo. Archer and co were a decent enough ensemble too

Looks like the cost of sending equipment to Minmus was just reduced to a reusable, battery-powered truck. Even Mortimer will be happy.

When you're using the claw for surface docking, make sure you're controlling the claw-equipped vessel/vehicle. Not tried it in 1.0, but in earlier versions, docking with the other ship caused the planet's surface to disappear and bad things then happen.

Try the star systems mod and go interstellar. Set up a self-sufficient colony on an extrasolar planet, with its own mining operation and science outpost.

One way of ferrying fuel from a mining/refinery outpost to a landed ship is to build a fuel tanker rover. Use the grabbing claw rather than docking ports, and transferring fuel becomes much easier. I tend to find rovers on Minmus struggle for traction due to the low gravity, and since it will be operating around a fuel refinery, it might be a good idea to use landing gear and RCS thrusters for propulsion.

"Strudel for everyone!" Jawohl, Herr Hauptingenieur!

You should launch a mission to go and capture parallel Jeb (the one in orbit) in a cargo bay and bring him back to Kerbin for study

I think the way to get good science from Jool is probably to use something like this from Eve Order Zero Just make sure that, unlike the ill-fated Atmospherikdipperkraft, things don't get worse. There is no abort to surface option on Jool...

If you haven't unlocked the klaw yet, you could try using structural girders etc to make a sort of cradle. With this cradle mounted to a ship, you can guide it around the stranded tourist's ship and push it back to Kerbin.