Milkrun to Minmus: there and back in 4h23m

[Laie]

This is this week's challenge on reddit: http://redd.it/3ekxza

I'm not a reddit user, but got hooked anyway. Here's a brief overview of the mission:

Hints for anyone trying to do something similar:

• large heat shield not only has more ablator, it also creates a lot more drag. This allowed me to enter at a comparatively high periapsis and still come to an nearly immediate stop. The G meter is off the scale, but who cares? This setup is good for entries of 6000m/s, maybe even 7000, at a periapsis of ~27km.
  
• don't bother with maneuver planing. Just set your target and point at target, this won't be all wrong. There's plenty of time to fine-tune as you go.
  
• returning from Minmus, I used chase view to point the rocket at Kerbin. Didn't work all that well, I had to dedicate a few hundred m/s to a radial burn later on.
  
• heat was a problem: the vessel was getting hot enough that my ablator slowly vaporized. No practical amount of heatsinks could prevent this. In the end it worked out well enough, but sure looked scary.
  

Edited July 29, 2015 by Laie