Broda

I sent Jeb and Bob out to intercept a class D asteroid, do some experiments, collect samples - you know, that sort of fun. Missed the asteroid by a long shot, tried to intercept and ended in a highly eliptical orbit around Kerbin (I'm talking Ap far beyond Mun) and not nearly enough delta-V to get to LKO and back home. So Jeb thought of a brilliant idea of dropping the Pe and use aerobraking to slow down. Then, at a reasonable speed, we drop into the atmosphere, deploy the chutes...WAIT, WHERE ARE THE CHUTES? Used the last little bit of RCS to raise Pe to 70k, get the into a stable orbit and launch the Quick response team spaceplane to intercept and fetch them back to Kerbin. Against all odds, Jeb lives to see another day.

Have you upgraded your tracking station yet? If yes, you should see little question marks in the tracking station in space. Select them, then hit "Track" on the bottom left of the screen. You'll get all the info on them there.

This. Probably the most efficient way to go about it. If you have enough $$ and this is not a priority mission for you, you can also build a lander with ore drilling and refining equipment. Then you can hop around as you please, and do other projects while the tanks are filling up. Though I suggest you take it to Minmus first and hop onto the Mun from there. I tried fiddling around with different types of wheels but dropped that idea since wheels break a lot as was already mentioned, but also the painstakingly long driving times from biome to biome.

+1 here. However, I do sometimes rearrange staging while in space, i.e. in case I see I will need to ditch the stage mid-burn not to overshoot the node.

It might not be the most efficient way but if you're already up there - what I usually do is use the sun and Kerbin to get my bearings on the Mun, then use landmarks I can see on the map for more accurate waypoints. Especially for taking off, I warp until I see Kerbin come up just above the horizon(meaning that's East), and launch towards it. Otherwise, the navball depends on the orientation of the controlling part. So if your controlling part is pointing upwards(which for most Mun lander designs it will), your Navball will not be particularly useful. Alternatively, you can slap on a docking port on the front of your rover and control it from there(right-click the part and select "control from here"). You should get the correct heading then. You can, and probably should, test it on the launch pad during the assembly.

My science lab on the Mun led by Bob was a success although at the time of landing, it turned out it only had about 200 dV left after Bob got carried away exploring some biomes. Anyway, It's been up there for quite a while now so I decided to send Jeb up in a lander to transmit some leftover space data, land and get the Pilot & Engineer back to Kerbin, while leaving the two scientists to complete the research in the lab. Here's a group photo of the science mission team while Jeb is waiting in the lander, keeping the meter running:

Thanks CaptainApollo! I'll be sure to take a stab at some of the challenges out there, looks like tons of fun. Getting Kerbals to moons is not much more difficult than getting into orbit - getting them back alive is the tricky bit

Hi Everyone, Broda reporting in. I'm not really new to KSP, I played the earlier versions a bit but only recently got to seriously get into it. I'm playing career mode, currently unlocking tier 6 tech. I have several satellites in orbits of Kerbin, Mun and Minmus, a space station in Kerbin orbit, and a surface outpost with a mobile processing lab on Mun. I have explored Kerbin, some of Mun and some of Minmus. Now I'm trying to get a bit further. I've been playing without any mods until yesterday when I installed MechJeb to improve fuel efficiency. Still, I prefer to burn manually since I seem to be constructing rockets with mid-burn stage separations and MJ isn't brilliant with handling those. Looking forward to rendezvous with you all around the forums!

Tried to intercept an asteroid for the first time. Used the same lander I normally use for Minmus return trips. Failed miserably by running out of fuel at 20% of my burn(those things are FAST!).

This is brilliant! I had the same issue numerous times while only carrying SPL 1x6 on board an unmanned probe and with those retracted, I found myself in the middle of nowhere being utterly helpless with zero charge. Cost me a small fortune in career mode. I worked around that by always adding at least one OX-STAT to the craft so it could eventually charge and possibly save my vessel. I think I'll use your method going forward though.