how to get to the moon and come back demo ver. ?(easiest way) please!

[penguin]

please teach me the plan for making it please post a photo

and sometimes i couldn\'t link properly. how to fix?

[Cooly568]

First, You, must make a rocket capable of getting into orbit.

Once you know you can get the rocket to orbit, put more fuel on it.

Also design a lander. (I\'m not helping much am I?)

Here is my smallest rocket to the mun and hopefully back.

In orbit

In orbit again

Glamorous shot of the lander around the mun

I used some mod packs. I have yet to land on the mun with vanilla parts.=P

[BillWiskins]

I find the easiest way to solve this complex task is to spend four seconds typing the phrase \'Mun tutorial\' into the Search field at the top of the page, or even use those eyes of yours to locate some of the fourteen thousand other threads with the same exact question as yours in the topic title.

Honestly, I don\'t mean to be rude, but the answer to all of the questions you have and more are literally a few clicks away.

[UmbralRaptor]

Sort of. The search is semi-broken will only generate useful results if he backs out to the forum index first. Otherwise, it\'ll only show this thread.

More useful threads:

http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/forum/index.php?topic=8278.msg120302#msg120302

http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/forum/index.php?topic=9767.msg144811#msg144811

For posting pics here:

1) Take a screenshot (F1 using KSP\'s built in functions)

2) upload the pics. Yfrog, imgur or whatever you want.

3) use the following forum code.

[img=Some_image_url][/img]

[Kryten]

Once you\'ve got a rocket set up, getting to Mün is relatively simple;

[list type=decimal]

[li]When you take off, make sure to go East precisely, and get into a circular-ish orbit. It can be around 70-150km up, it doesn\'t really matter.[/li]

[li]Wait in orbit until you see the Mün come over the horizon, then fire your rocket/s until your AP is at the same height as the Mün\'s orbit.[/li]

[li]When you get close to the Mün, you will you are on a collision course. Don\'t worry, a landing is simply a slow collision course.[/li]

[li]Fire your engines sideways until your retrograde vector (the green circle with the lines through it) is pointing straight down.[/li]

[li]Slow down slowly, until you approach the surface[/li]

[li]Be aware that the surface will be at anywhere from 1000m to 3000m altitude; the best way to watch for it is to watch the boulders.[/li]

[li]Take care to keep falling straight, and aim to land at less than 10m/s.[/li]

If you\'ve done all this, well done, you\'ve landed!

It\'s best to try the final stages on Kerbin first; learn to use the navball properly, it\'s very useful

[BillWiskins]

Sort of. The search is semi-broken will only generate useful results if he backs out to the forum index first. Otherwise, it\'ll only show this thread.

It\'s broken? I thought that was a feature, heh. Kind of a \'search all forums\', \'search this forum\', or \'search this particular thread\' sort of deal, depending on which level you\'re viewing at.

Ah well

[sss]

My best way is to get the IFE mod, get the intrepid SLS and fly it to the moon.

thats how i first landed on the moon 8)

[VincentMcConnell]

Here is my smallest rocket to the mun and hopefully back.

In orbit

That thing is way bigger than it needs to be. Getting to the moon is really easy, just utilize fuel lines. You should only need a few boosters for the job. I\'ve landed on the Mun with all stock parts, but have never been able to return upon getting there. I assume it\'ll be much easier when we are able to transfer fuel and resupply in-game. We could just land fuel tanks next to our lander and refuel to return that way.

[Temstar]

The trick is to plan your munshot in stages, just like how the Apollo program did it.

Stage 1: Learning orbital mechanics

In this stage all you need to do is to build small rockets that can put a bare bone spacecraft into LKO. Here you will need to practice and familiarize yourself with orbital mechanics, namely learning to only thrust at AP and EP to save delta-V. This mission is nearly identical to the mission of Apollo 7. Once you can reliably put small spacecrafts into orbit and deorbit them safely, move onto stage 2.

This is the craft I used for stage 1:

Stage 2: Trans-Munar Injection and Trans-Kerbin injection

In this stage you will apply knowledge learned from stage 1 to use to travel to the Mun without actually landing on the Munar surface. This means a mission of this type will involve first entering LKO. Then performing a TMI burn to place your PE about 60 degrees in front of Mun\'s orbit. Once there perform a retroburn to enter a Munar orbit. Then once ready fire your rocket again for TKI injection burn to return back to Kerbin. On arrival perform another retroburn to get into LKO before picking a spot for deorbiting. Don\'t be scared by the vast distances your ship will have to travel - the actual delta-V for for TMI and TKI are quite small when done right, gravity will do most of the work for you. This is the same mission profile as Apollo 8

This is the craft I used for stage 2:

Stage 3: Building heavy boosters

Since an Apollo style Munar orbit rendezvous is not possible (yet), the only way to land on the Mun and get back is to use a Direct Ascent mission profile which requires you to lift quite a large spaceship to LKO. Building reliable heavy boosters is not easy, both in real life and in KSP because the size of your rocket does not increase linearly with the payload. I find the best way to practice building big rockets is to aim to lift a big space station into LKO. Build the space station to a size bit bigger than the munshot spacecraft so when the time comes you can just scale down the heavy booster a little bit for the munshot. This is similar to the Skylab 1 mission.

This is the craft I used for stage 3, those things at the front are spacecraft docking arms:

Stage 4: Munshot

You now have all the skills you need to go to the Mun and back except for one - powered descent. Unfortunately there\'s no way to build a LLTV equivalent (or is there?) to practice on Kerbin so the only way to learn is to actually do it. Once your lander is in position for powered descent do a quick save with F5 and backup your .\saves\default folder. Then keep at it using F9 for quickload if you crash until you land safely on the Mun.

Remember, once you\'re on the Munar surface you need very little delta-V to take off and get back to Kerbin. So while giving yourself some margin of safety aim to build the smallest lander possible. This mission is the Apollo 11 equivalent.

Here is my Munshot rocket:

[BlackShadow03]

That thing is way bigger than it needs to be. Getting to the moon is really easy, just utilize fuel lines. You should only need a few boosters for the job. I\'ve landed on the Mun with all stock parts, but have never been able to return upon getting there. I assume it\'ll be much easier when we are able to transfer fuel and resupply in-game. We could just land fuel tanks next to our lander and refuel to return that way.

I\'ve landed on the Mun and returned safely a few times now and I don\'t have any mods installed. If you can get something to land on the Mun, then you\'re practically golden. For the return, just have a stack decoupler on top of your lander with your capsule/parachute, a small fuel tank, and the smallest engine. That\'s all that\'s needed. I\'ve returned by going into Mun orbit first and by burning towards Kerbal in a nearly direct approach. Massive fuel payloads and clusters of large engines to get to the Mun......Tiny engine and minimal fuel to make it back!

Just remember to aim a fair bit left of Kerbal (well, left as seen from the Map View....your actual direction will depend on where you landed) to guarantee you get captured in the gravity well as the Mun circles counter-clockwise. You don\'t even need to get your Apogee all the way to Kerbal\'s doorstep....just enough to escape the Mun\'s gravity and be caught by Kerbal\'s. Burn Retro (at the new Apogee in your now Kerbal orbit is ideal) to drop the Perigee into the Atmo, decouple the engine/fuel tank, deploy parachute, ???, PROFIT! 8)

I\'ll make a screenshot of one of my successful landers with a return module on top next time I get to play. I\'ve heard of people getting back to Kerbal from the Mun on pure RCS alone. That is way out of my league at the moment!

[Kosmo-not]

Here\'s my first Mun rocket:

Kosmo-Zero

It works with the demo version.

My most recent Mun rocket (you need the paid version for this):

I don\'t have a name for it. Very easy to build.

[VincentMcConnell]

I don\'t have a name for it. Very easy to build.

Even that looks a little big.

[Kosmo-not]

Even that looks a little big.

Is this more to your liking?

The Bare Minimum

[VincentMcConnell]

Is this more to your liking?

The Bare Minimum

You can land that on the mun???

[Kosmo-not]

You can land that on the mun???

Yes. It goes to the Mun and back. You should try it.

[VincentMcConnell]

Did you get into a parking orbit and inject or just do a direct ascent towards the East at the proper heading? I don\'t think I\'d be able to get it to the Mun.

[Kosmo-not]

Did you get into a parking orbit and inject or just do a direct ascent towards the East at the proper heading? I don\'t think I\'d be able to get it to the Mun.

I started out with putting myself in a low Kerbin orbit (close to 70km). I did my usual TMI burn. Upon arriving inside the Mun\'s SOI, I burned radially inward to lower my PE to 2km. I then waited until I was at 5km and started my landing burn. I took off heading 090° and did my usual TKI. Put my PE at 30km above Kerbin and did a powered landing.

[VincentMcConnell]

Why are you not working at SpaceX or commanding flights into space? haha

[Kosmo-not]

Why are you not working at SpaceX or commanding flights into space? haha

If you know anyone who wants a mechanical engineering student intern, let me know, lol.

Once you get used to thinking about orbital mechanics in different ways, it becomes easy. It gives you more possibilities to do the same things you\'ve done before.

[VincentMcConnell]

I bet if you wrote a well-thought out thesis on new and improved orbital rendezvous theories, you would make a lot of people really think highly of you. It\'d probably help for a future job with a space agency. Buzz Aldrin was a rendezvous genius that wrote thesis at MIT on it. Look where his career took him! (Ignore the spiraling depression and alcohol problems following Apollo 11).

[Minecraftpeti]

I usually just (try to) get into a near-circular orbit at 11400 km (the orbit altitude of the mun). But be careful, you have to pitch away from the Water at launch, otherwise it wont work. (RetroGrade orbit)

If you have done it correctly, you will crash into the mun after some time. You can also try to land, but ins HARD!!! You have to slow down from 2 times orbital speed...