Which is better to mine, Minmus, or the Mun

[Alpha 360]

Mining is an important part of the game. Early on, you want to pratice mining in the Kerbin system, where to go? Here are the stats -

1.which is easier to get to?

The Mun of course! You can easily get to it whenever you want, it follows an perfect orbit around Kerbin and missions take no more than a few days to get there and back! Minmus however; follows an elliptical orbit around Kerbin and missions there and back can take a month!

2. Which is easier to get into orbit of?

Minmus because of the low gravity, I have charted that it takes about no more than 100 delta V to get into orbit. The Mun takes about 400 Delta V to get into orbit.

3. Which is easier to land on?

Minmuss because again of low gravity, it takes about the same stats above to land on either of the moons

4. which has more ore?

This is very difficult to tell but I suspect that Minmus has more ore than the Mun, but the high ore regions on Minmus are a little more harder to land on, while anywhere on the Mun is hard to land on.

5. Delta V stats

It takes about 2100 Delta V to get into orbit of Kerbin. It takes about an extra 800 delta V to get to the Mun and you have to burn about half of your velocity, Then it takes another four hundred to land on the Mun, which comes to the grand total of 3,700 Delta V from launch to touch-down on the Mun. To Minmus you have to burn roughly 950 Delta V to get to Minmus and about 50 more Delta V to get into orbit, then you burn about 100 delta V to land, which comes to a grand total of 3,100 

This is not totally correct but its close

 

[HoloYolo]

Minmus is better overall because of low gravity and easy traveling. Mun is better location wise as it is closer and has no inclination. 

[Vysionone]

They're about the same, really, so the question is: Do you want to mine mint ice cream or grúyere cheese?

[mrclucks]

2100dv to orbit?! I'm usually getting 3000dv

 

And minmus by far, especially with the more science and not needing as much landing gear, if any

[cantab]

It depends what your operation is for.

If I'm running a mining operation to maintain an orbital fuel depot for fuelling interplanetary ships, I would put the fuel depot in Munar orbit and mine the Mun. This is because Munar is a much more convenient departure point for an interplanetary trip. For Duna and Eve you can just burn directly from there and its efficient, while for further destinations you'll want to swing low over Kerbin and burn there, but either way the short period of the Mun's orbit means you won't have long to wait before going. Compared to what's required for the interplanetary trip, any extra effort involved in the Mun mining is unimportant.

If on the other hand I'm running a mining operation to maintain a surface fuel depot for fuelling ships, then Minmus is clear better for its much lower requirements to land.

[elpollodiablo]

If you have a fuel mining operation going, the amount of delta-v to get to that place is basically irrelevant, incase you have enough fuel to make it

I usually go with both and use Minmus for the more inclined orbits like Moho or Eelo. Also, if you went there enough you get your way around launching into an inclined orbit, which makes going there basically the same as to the Mun, just takes a little longer.

[Dfthu]

Minmus has lower gravity and there's a bug there that the sun powers solar panels even in the dark.

[strigon]

2 hours ago, elpollodiablo said:

If you have a fuel mining operation going, the amount of delta-v to get to that place is basically irrelevant, incase you have enough fuel to make it

Not necessarily, since that directly affects how much fuel you can haul at a given time.
Plus, with Minmus, you can use less powerful engines to get into orbit, and the less powerful engines are pretty much always the more efficient ones.

I mean, technically it's the same both ways, except for the time required, but then technically bringing a base to Moho is best done with ion engines, except for the time required.

[Violent Jeb]

Yeah its 3200 dv to orbit, and realistically i've only managed to top that once or twice. So you're looking at 4800 dv for mun, and around 4200 dv for minmus. Note that once the craft is there you'll only ever need around 1200 dv for takeoff and landing operations on either and the rest is potential fuel for other purposes.

As long as you're comfortable with inclinations then minmus is the obvious choice. Less fuel, solar panels work at night (except when behind kerbin), and there are giant flat swaths which will make landing a breeze.

On the flip side, if you have a very small craft it might be hard to land and "ancor" to the minmusian surface. RCS and SAS should help with this. Not much of an issue for me as my mining rigs are usually 100t+ monstrosities.

 

The other consideration is that return flights from the mun take a day, and return flights from minmus take a week. So if you're looking at a lot of time-critical operations, The mun will be faster.

 

 

Edited June 29, 2016 by Violent Jeb

[AbacusWizard]

I do all my mining on Minmus because my engineers like the scenery there better.

 

Besides, it's even in the name... Mining... Minmus... can't argue with that!

[Mastikator]

It takes about ~1750m/s to go from LKO to land on Mun and ~1270m/s from LKO to land on Minimus. The mun has an escape velocity of 800m/s, for minimus it's only 242m/s.

On the other hand you can go from LKO to the mun in pretty much 1 day, to get to Minimus it takes something like 8-13 days.

[Superfluous J]

I always wanted to implement what I would call the "70s clock" constellation of ships. 12 large fuel stations that each had filled up at Minmus and then brought itself down into an elliptical orbit as if returning back to Kerbin, but then getting into a stable polar orbit that is guaranteed to never intersect Minmus' or Mun's SOIs. Like this:

Then whenever I wanted to go interplanetary, I'd not have to encounter Minmus and all that jazz. My launched ship would just need to match periapses (is that the term?) with the station that was closest to the ideal launch angle, then burn up to meet it (fixing that station's inclination angle temporarily and cheaply out at apoapsis), fuel up, and head off to its destination. Then the fuel outpost would either go back to Minmus to refuel, or there'd be a dedicated refueler for the stations that would go out and fill it back up.

It's way more work than I'd want to put in, but I still thought it'd be cool.

[Alshain]

I would say neither.  The infrastructure does not make the process worthwhile that close to Kerbin, it's easier just to launch fuel.  ISRU is for interplanetary work IMO.

[KerikBalm]

Mun:

fast transits to it.

Short orbital periods allow one to depart at a transfer window so that only a small burn is needed to drop pe and then a much shorter burn at PE. This wirks for minmus too. But the timing is harder and the inclination complicates things.

i disagree with Alahain, precisely because after refueling, the craft is  easily placed on a highly eccentric orbit very close to escape velocity.

also for my reusable "ejection boosters" (they dock with a payload in space and place the payload on an interplanetary  trajectory then detach and retroburn to stay in kerbin soi):

its easier for me to aerobrake downto a trajectory intercepting mun orbit and rendevous with a fuel tanker/ depot, than to aerobrake all the way down to lko, and then rendevous in lko (launching fuel from kerbins surface is harder than launching the same amount from the surface of mun

[elpollodiablo]

17 hours ago, strigon said:

Not necessarily, since that directly affects how much fuel you can haul at a given time.
Plus, with Minmus, you can use less powerful engines to get into orbit, and the less powerful engines are pretty much always the more efficient ones.

The amount of dV to get to the place is still irrelevant if you can make it. What matters is the amount of dV you need to get off the place.

Of course, you can haul more fuel back to orbit with the same craft from Minmus than from the Mun. You can also haul more back from Eelo than from Eve, yet it isnt cheaper to go there. I know that's semantics, hence the smiley

Anyway, i use fuel-tankers to do the hauling, way too wasteful to actually land an interplanetary vessel just for refuelling. If you have an infrastructure in place the only thing that matters is which tanking facility is the most efficient to go to your target. Just dock at the orbital fuel station and head off. And for this, both Mun and Minmus have their merits.

[Bill Phil]

It's actually easier to get to Minmus, since it's so easy to brake into orbit and land, and it only takes a bit more delta V to get that far as opposed to the Mun.

[suicidejunkie]

I mine at Minmus and have 200t LV-N tankers land next to the refinery to fill up, then the tankers travel to LKO where they become fuel stations.  Once empty, they can return to the refinery and land on their own to repeat the cycle.

When using KCT, the 14-day ping time for fuel tankers isn't a problem, and even with just two tankers, there's always one ready in LKO.

 

I do have a fuel service set up on mun as well, but it is small and extremely inefficient by comparison.  Just enough to keep local operations running.

 

Crew cycling and upgrades are so much easier on Minmus as well.  My SSTO plane can go from KSC to Minmus, and then back without refueling, while to even land on mun requires a top-up in munar orbit.

[Kerbinchaser]

I find Minmus's low gravity very annoying. One little spurt of thrust, and you're flying back up into orbit. However, it has it's strong points. 

Minmus's flats are very nice to land on. Not like the Mun, which has craters everywhere. 

The Mun however, is also nice if you want to do a mining mission because it is close to Kerbin and easy to intercept. 

The real game changer though, is how much mineable fuel your game save has on each planet. I have had more fuel on the Mun than Minmus recently. 

Hope this helped.

[helaeon]

It seems that Minmus also generally spawns better ore deposits in more locations as well.
Finding a good place on the Mun is more difficult and I've found flights more difficult. However, for some reason I prefer the mun base over a minmus base.

I've thought for a while due to the increased landing difficulty the science and resource values for the Mun and Minmus should be switched.

[Geschosskopf]

On 6/29/2016 at 7:12 AM, Alpha 360 said:

Mining is an important part of the game. Early on, you want to pratice mining in the Kerbin system, where to go?

OK, first off, we're assuming this is just for practice, not for actual use.  This will save me from my usual spiel that mining operations anywhere within Kerbin's SOI lacks practical value except for a self-refueling spaceplane.  Otherwise, it's just for entertainment.  Mining only really makes practical sense when done at other planets.

So, practice mining....   The whole ISRU thing involves many different challenges, so IMHO the answer depends on what part of the whole package you need practice on.  I mean, if you just want to put the parts together and learn how to operate them, you can do that beside the KSC runway without ever needing a rocket.  Kerbin's shores usually have about 8% Ore, which is about the best you'll find in a convenient place at any other planet.  So let's assume you're beyond that stage and want to practice the more complicated aspects of ISRU.  IMHO, these are:

1. Prospecting for Good Locations:  This is the most overlooked step in the whole process.  So many people apparently pick a landing site based solely on the overlay map of the M700 Orbital Surveyor, and then wonder why they have problems.  To find good Ore in a convenient location, you have to prospect for it actively with the Surface Scanner and/or NBS.  To do that effectively,  you have to understand how those parts work and how to interpret their data.  So this is definitely something to practice.  I wrote a tutorial on it (link in my sig).
2. Constructing Mining Bases out of Multiple Modules:  This involves designing the modules and their delivery systems, flying them out there, getting them down safely in clsoe proximity, and then hooking them together on the surface.  Included in this is also figuring out how to power the whole system (assuming you're too far out there for solar panels and respect the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics too much to run it off fuel cells).  Plus deciding whether or not to lift the ISRU gear, Ore, or finished product, designing any dedicated fuel tanker shuttles, and figuring out how to land them next to the base and hook them up.

For all of these things, IMHO Mun is way better practice for what you'll encounter at other planets than Minmus.  The main reasons for that are:

• Mun's terrain is much more representative of other planets than Minmus'.  The lack of any truly level ground greatly complicates connecting base modules and fuel shuttles together.
• Mun's higher gravity and large areas of horrible terrain put a premium on proper prospecting.  You really have to look for the best Ore available on or near the equator that also is on reasonably flat ground.  This is exactly what you'll face at Moho, Duna, Ike, Dres, Laythe, Vall, Tylo, and Eeloo.  IOW, everywhere but Gilly, Bop, and Pol.
• Mun's gravity means you'll need a more robust delivery system than the low-gravity places.  Given that there are more high-gravity places, you need to be able to handle them.

[nosirrbro]

Minmus, best. bestbest.

[magnemoe]

13 hours ago, Lo Var Lachland said:

I find Minmus's low gravity very annoying. One little spurt of thrust, and you're flying back up into orbit. However, it has it's strong points. 

Minmus's flats are very nice to land on. Not like the Mun, which has craters everywhere. 

The Mun however, is also nice if you want to do a mining mission because it is close to Kerbin and easy to intercept. 

The real game changer though, is how much mineable fuel your game save has on each planet. I have had more fuel on the Mun than Minmus recently. 

Hope this helped.

One benefit of minmus is that its easier to land accurate, for some reason mechjeb is more accurate landing on Mun, probably as the low speeds on Minmus make the 0.1 m/s dV error larger, still its easy to correct and don't cost much fuel. 
This is critical if you use mining bases and tankers, only downside with Minmus is the longer travel time, however this only matter in the start of the game. Then launching heavy stuff like bases add some more fuel and take the large core stage up to orbit, with docking ports they make nice fuel depots. probe core, reaction wheels and power makes them easier to use. 


 

[Superfluous J]

8 hours ago, Geschosskopf said:

Mining only really makes practical sense when done at other planets.

I will never understand this outlook. To get to Minmus orbit from LKO, you need about 1100m/s. If you show up at Minmus with empty tanks and fill up there (so you again have 1100m/s) you can:

• Flyby Moho
• Land on Gilly and make a good run at coming back.
• Land on Ike and make a good run at coming back.
• Flyby Dres
• Get into orbit of Jool and (via gravity assists) any of its moons.
• Make a stab at an Eeloo flyby.

And these assume that your 1100m/s ship doesn't toss extra mass on its way out (which can greatly increase total dV) that it couldn't ditch on the way to Minmus. 1100m/s Single Stage to Minmus could easily get 50% more dV by ditching dry tanks and whatnot.

And don't say it's extra work that you could just throw extra fuel tanks at on the surface. Of course you could. You could save even more time by not playing the game at all. Just because you don't want to do it doesn't make it an inherently bad idea.

[Firemetal]

On ‎6‎/‎29‎/‎2016 at 1:37 PM, Dfthu said:

Minmus has lower gravity and there's a bug there that the sun powers solar panels even in the dark.

Yeah ran into this bug.  

[Champ]

Hi all

2 things here :

First, the "no mining in kerbin SOI" thing : I think you are talking about sandbox. In a Career game, it's way cheaper to mine from minmus/mun than it is to haul fuel in orbit from the surface of kerbin. (well, not for the first refuel, ok)

Second, the "where to mine" thing : as i understand it, you guys all consider you would mine from the mun (or minmus) and leave that fuel in mun (or minmus) orbit (or landed). Personnally, i have a large ship that mines from minmus, converts the ore to fuel, and haul that fuel to my kerbin station (200km circular orbit).
I don't know if it's optimal or not, i am just saying there is a third option. Note : yes, i know it would be far cheaper to just haul the ore and convert it in the station (no need to haul the converter), but i think it is safer like this (no 'oops, no fuel left' problem).