Just like the real NASA

[Nich]

So just like the real NASA once I have explored the Mun and Minimus I have been having a very hard time putting the effort or time into planning any exploration of Duna.

Any advice on how to find the love for KSP again?

[nalfz]

NASA's been to Minmus? Who knew

[monstah]

When I was in that position, I started just playing around building things instead of exploring.

Haven't gone back to exploring yet Duna sits there waiting.

[Foxster]

If you haven't already then use Mechjeb. Takes the tedium out of things so that you can concentrate on building rockets, landing them and such rather than all the farting about.

[Andrewx21]

Just launch a mission, if it doesn't work try again. Trial and error.

[klgraham1013]

Just launch a mission, if it doesn't work try again. Trial and error.

...or use Kerbal Engineer and know it (should) work the first time.

[Edax]

So just like the real NASA once I have explored the Mun and Minimus I have been having a very hard time putting the effort or time into planning any exploration of Duna.

Any advice on how to find the love for KSP again?

Challenge yourself. Land a spaceplane on Duna. Do something out of the ordinary.

[Jim Kernan]

If you haven't already done so, get on Twitch and look up Kerbal Space Program and watch some of the streamers. I'm sure you'll think of things to do after watching a few of those guys.

[regex]

So just like the real NASA once I have explored the Mun and Minimus I have been having a very hard time putting the effort or time into planning any exploration of Duna.

NASA's sent probes to the outer reaches of our solar system, maybe take a page from their book.

[Grumman]

Any advice on how to find the love for KSP again?

Get USI Life Support. Build a supply base on Minmus and a mothership in Minmus orbit. Load the mothership with everything you need - rovers, spaceplanes, fuel, supplies - and fly to a new planet.

[viktor19]

So just like the real NASA once I have explored the Mun and Minimus I have been having a very hard time putting the effort or time into planning any exploration of Duna.

Any advice on how to find the love for KSP again?

Two words: Realism Overhaul

NASA's been to Minmus? Who knew

That freeze-dried ice cream has got to come from somewhere

[Mikki]

Hi Nich

Challenge yourself, show off your success!

I love the Stockparts and the asteroid day addon, its enough to have a big fun... Less is way more then you maybe can imagine!

Try to do a roundtrip in the kerbolsystem and rescue all the Kerbals around... just an idea:wink:

[CalculusWarrior]

So just like the real NASA once I have explored the Mun and Minimus I have been having a very hard time putting the effort or time into planning any exploration of Duna.

Any advice on how to find the love for KSP again?

I find that when I lose motivation towards playing KSP, it helps to just launch a tiny mission to the planet you want to explore. Just send a probe, no fancy bases nor mods. Simply a little probe to check things out. Heck, you could bring along a resource scanner if you want, in preparation for future missions which might want to refuel on the planet's surface. Then, after you've launched and completed the mission successfully, think to yourself what you want to find out more about Duna. Do you want to explore its surface a bit more? Send a rover. How about Ike? Send another orbiter (or orbiter and lander) to investigate.

Best of all, if you think that Duna is just a big boring red rock, you don't have to go back. Set your sights on Eve, or Jool, or anywhere else you want--including Kerbin itself! There's no shame in just sticking to low orbit and building a super-cool space station, or trying your hand at an SSTO. Heck, even build a Munbase! Don't pressure yourself into thinking you have to get to Duna; stick to doing what you find most fun about the game.

[Alshain]

Your burned out and you haven't even left Kerbin?

[Caelib]

So just like the real NASA once I have explored the Mun and Minimus I have been having a very hard time putting the effort or time into planning any exploration of Duna.

Any advice on how to find the love for KSP again?

Start a new save and turn off the ability to Save/Quickload.

[GunnDawg]

Your burned out and you haven't even left Kerbin?

Did you even read his original post?

[Wallygator]

Frankly I wouldn't worry about it. Go do something else for as long as you want. KSP likely won't disappear soon.

[Sharpy]

*sigh* and my Duna expedition is still refuelling in Minmus orbit. Last round by the OreRunner, after this the expedition will be fully fuelled up. Next stop for OreRunner after that is Ike.

Well, instead of launching some half-assed "get there, land, pick samples, return" I'm making something vastly overengineered. There's the lander which I *hope* could be multi-use, but just in case it can dump spare fuel tanks and return in half the required weight. There's the laboratory and ISRU, tucked together in a large cargo bay along with some spare ore tanks. There's the crew/reentry module. And the OreRunner, a lander with drills for landing legs. Oh, and three ore scanner probes, one for Duna, one for Ike and one... uh, a backup I guess. And there's the propulsion module, the largest LF tank with quad nukes at the end. Everything bound in a half-kilometer long train. And I seriously consider adding a pair of rovers before they depart Minmus en route to Duna.

...during the refuelling the craft gained the crew/reentry module because it would allow me to keep the lander in orbit and fetch more crew, then there was a stranded Kerbal on Minmus, and the lander went there to pick her up, and currently she's with the crew to visit Duna before return to Kerbin, then there was the fun of the first ore run - as I assembled it in LKO, the segments would be brought unfuelled to orbit and get only as much fuel as was left in the SSTO launch module after bringing a segment to the orbit (minus what was needed for reentry of the launch module), I landed in Minmus orbit with bare scraps of fuel. I picked every last drop including the Oscar-B tanks of the three probes to fuel up the OreRunner. It had to dump 1/3 the ore it picked because it would never make it back, and even then it arrived with less than 10 units of LF left. The ore it brought was barely enough to fill the OreRunner tank But luckily - unlike before, actually *fill* it instead of getting it 1/3 full, and it didn't need to dump any ore on return and didn't arrive with empty fuel tanks either.

Oh, and once I had to load, because I'm too good with my maneuvers. I launched the OreRunner from the surface, as the Mission was flying just above, picked the right direction for encounter, burned for the encounter without even trying to first make an orbit - like 300m from the launch point, then checked the map, yeah, a neat 0.1km encounter in like a minute or so. I corrected the course to make it even better, then began slowly turning around for a retrograde burn relative to target, without RCS not to spoil the encounter, and.... boom, 27 tons of ore at 70m/s right into the quad nukes.

Point? My Duna trip didn't even begin yet and it's quite an adventure so far.

[Nich]

Actually that is not a bad idea to put together a 10km dV probe and just go play around in Duna's SOI before the transfer window comes up.

[Mad Rocket Scientist]

Same thing happened to me, I tried really hard to go to duna, I had this lander which had NEVER successfully landed, even in tests. On duna, my parachutes failed, the landing gear collapsed, and the transfer vehicle ran out of fuel. I landed the command pod from the polar orbit which I would never be able to dock with, and tries to walk jeb over to the pod with bill and bob in it. Then my save started acting up, and a new version came out. Much later, I got a far simpler lander to work.

[Tourist]

A few others have mentioned it, but do Duna, but do it with a realistic flavour. By that I mean, no three person capsule would be sufficient for a journey of that length in real life. Some of the Gemini astronauts got a bit tetchy on some of the longer missions. There was even a "mutiny" by Wally Schirra and team on Apollo 7 (kind of).

So build a ship capable of getting a number of Kerbalnauts to Duna in relative comfort. At the very least I feel every Kerbal should have a compartment. Say at least one command pod, one hitchicker container and a science bay. That way they all have their own spaces. And can work in shifts, one sleeping, one sciencing, one monitoring the ship. That's how it works in my head cannon. You would also need an ascent/descent vehicle to Duna, and if your feeling ambitious, bring a small vehicle capable of exploring Ike while your there.

[John FX]

I wanted to play KSP since the 70`s. I have a very large back catalog of missions I need to do that I got from Apollo, further NASA missions and sci-fi.

On top of that there are combo missions I need to do for my own interest.

It`s been a few years now and the intense urgency has gone but there are still a lot of things I have not done yet that I wuld like to do.

Recreate some recent NASA missions like the rube-goldberg mars mission, Dawn, New horizons etc