reclaimerxaoc

Managed to get Jeb to Duna and back home to Kerbin with all stock parts. Launched him in a one-man pod to Duna; once I got there, I circularized my orbit and descended to about 90,000m. Retro burn to drop my periapsis to 5,000m. The landing craft was simple - one-man pod, parachute, large 1m tank, small 1m engine, four legs, and ladder stuff. Once I got into thicker atmosphere I opened the parachute and ignited the engine. I kept the engine on idle until close to the last minute, and then used it for some braking. It was actually much easier than landing on the Mun or Minmus (the parachute kept me stable). Getting him home was much more complicated. I used a three-man pod and had one crewmember climb out (the only non-original Kerbonaut; I felt that Jeb should be recovered by his original crewmates), and yes, I built a ladder all the way to the ground because it seemed like cheating if the disembarking crewmember died. I launched the recovery rocket towards Duna and circularized my orbit when I arrived. Lowered my orbit to about 400,000m then switched back to Jeb and his lander. I launched the lander from Duna and reached a circular orbit at 120,800m (with almost no fuel remaining). I carefully brought the three-man pod in for a rendezvous at that altitude. It was tough (the final approach for a rendezvous is harder with the three-man pod, in my opinion, because it isn't nearly as nimble), but eventually I brought the two craft into a stable orbit about 20m from eachother. At that point, Jeb EVA'd and floated over to the recovery vehicle. After he was on board, I fired up the engines and returned to Kerbin. It was hard, but I think the two rocket solution is probably the most reliable (with stock parts) for landing on the other planets and returning. That way you don't have to worry about landing a cruise stage, which in my case are always fuel-heavy, NERVA-powered monstrosities. I included screenshots (I'm pretty inexperienced with forums, so I might have done it wrong...) of Jeb on Duna's surface, the extra crewmember safely disembarking, and the lander and recovery vehicle rendezvousing through the window of the recovery vehicle.

If anyone is interested, I've created an orbit calculator for Android phones. It can compute circular orbits, elliptical orbits, and Hohmann transfer orbits. It's called KSP Orbit and is available on the Android Marketplace, for free. https://market.android.com/details?id=com.ksporbit&feature=search_result