My first successful Mun trip :D

[Anomalous_Matter]

Today marks an exciting day in my KSP career: My first successful Munar intercept, my first successful Mun orbit, my first successful Mun landing, and my first successful circular orbit around the Mun. Up until now, my strategy had been to get into a circular orbit at 11,400,000 meters like the Mun, but then I realized that it\'s very fuel-intensive and nearly impossible without MechJeb, so I decided to try an equatorial orbit and then extend the highest point to reach the Mun.

So I built a craft and launched it into orbit around 100 kilometers, then waited until the Mun was at the very edge of the horizon and throttled up. Once the height had reached about 11,400,000 meters, I stopped and warped up. A few minutes later, I was being slingshotted around the Mun. I burned retrograde and ended up with an elliptical orbit around the Mun, my first one ever.

I let my craft orbit for a bit while I savored the moment, then waited until my periapsis and burned retrograde until I was on a sub-orbital trajectory. At that point, I deployed one of my parachutes (I\'m not yet skilled enough to do a parachute-less landing without MechJeb, even on the Mun) and lander legs and ended up on a flat expanse on the dark side of the Mun. I waited again to get some light in the area, then launched again to get into a circular orbit. I waited until my apoapsis was 30,000 meters and managed to get a circular orbit

Not sure whether I\'m going to attempt a return at this point, but I got a screenshot of the ending orbit:

[Thiel]

(I\'m not yet skilled enough to do a parachute-less landing without MechJeb, even on the Mun)

Parachutes have no effect on the Mun, so yes you are.

[Kosmo-not]

Parachutes have no effect on the Mun, so yes you are.

I was just about to ask him if he panicked when his parachute didn\'t deploy.

[sal_vager]

Will the chute still work when he jeb_kerman gets back to Kerbin? I have had chutes deploy early before and they break.

[Anomalous_Matter]

Parachutes have no effect on the Mun, so yes you are.

So THAT\'S why my parachute didn\'t deploy... I thought I had staged it wrong or something, it was a rough landing. Nearly exploded multiple times, I just didn\'t mention it in the OP because it was embarrassing.

[Anachronda]

Nearly exploded multiple times, I just didn\'t mention it in the OP because it was embarrassing.

Embarrassing? Naw. Almost blowing up Kerbonauts isn\'t embarrassing.

Me, now, I\'ve got a trio of intrepid folks parked in orbit that I use as a target for orbital rendezvous (unsuccessfully, so far; I can\'t quite close the last few kilometers. I wind up braiding my orbit around that of the orbital station). When I checked in on them yesterday, all three of them were in manic screaming mode. After 29 lonely days in space, can\'t say I blame them...

[Anomalous_Matter]

I\'ve made a few more trips to the Mun using the same ship and strategy, assisted by MechJeb for the landing because I still have no idea how my craft survived it the first time. I attempted the exact same flight a minute ago and ended up not using enough thrust, so Jeb, Bill, and Bob crashed into the Mun and died at 70 meters per second.

On a related note, what speed of impact can lander legs handle? I\'ve been able to kill all my horizontal velocity, it\'s just the slowing down at the end that gets me blown up because I don\'t know what speed to try for. MechJeb makes it look so easy...

Also, a funny story: On the same trip I crashed into the Mun in, I ended up nearly running out of fuel because I messed up the Munar orbit and got slingshotted back towards Kerbin, so at the last second I had to burn retrograde to get into the Mun\'s SOI. Good times... I\'ve also found that now that I\'ve gotten to the Mun once, I can get there easily with little to no issues

[Ferrit]

I always try for a below 10m/s vertical landing speed, the slower the better. As I always have RCS on my landers as well as main engines have used RCS to push me from a hover on to the the Münar surface then MECO button.

Generally anything below 6m/s should be survivable for anything but it is wise to do a test landing on Kerbin just to check as some things like RCS tanks do tend to not like even gentle landings (annoyingly).