Which Moon i go first?

[Relonsk]

I'm wondering what moon i go first, MInmus or Mun?

[RizzoTheRat]

Both take a similar amount of dV, you need more to get to Minmus but less to land and take off, so if you have the technology to go tone you can go to both.

Landing is easier on Minmus as there's big obvious flat places and less gravity to contend with.

It's easier to get to the Mun though as it's a simple transfer without the need for a plane change or launching in to an inclined orbit.

Personally I always go to the Mun first in a new game but that's only really because it's become a habit.

[Vanamonde]

What Rizzo said. Mun is a bigger target and easier to hit, but once you're there, Minmus is much easier to land on. Coming back is almost the same from both. 

[Yakuzi]

Go Mun or bust!

[Relonsk]

Ok.

[jimmymcgoochie]

Mun is the easier one to hit- it's at zero inclination and a perfectly circular orbit, all you need to do is launch due east and then time your transfer burn so that the Mun is right in front of you as you do it.

Minmus is harder to get to as its orbit is inclined and elliptical plus it's a smaller target, but it's also better to land on due to the lower gravity (you need less delta-V to land and re-orbit) and the flats are excellent landing sites, although the hills around them can be dangerous if you come in too low.

If you have a level 2 tracking station, Minmus is the better option as it takes only a little bit more fuel to get there but once there you can get to the surface and back to orbit for less fuel than it takes to just land on the Mun. Otherwise, choose to go to the Mun, not because it's easy, but because- sorry, got all JFK for a moment there. Mun is easier to hit with a level 1 tracking station.

I recommend you try using probe landers first if you have the parts unlocked and send your Kerbals to gather science on Kerbin first as you can easily unlock many of the good parts without even leaving the atmosphere.

[N_Danger]

 One advantage of Minmus first is that, as long as you land on the flats, a tall and skinny lander will work better there than trying the same lander on the Mun. When building a lander for Minmus you don't have to take into account the CG as much as you do the Mun.

 But I'll admit it is only a slight advantage.

 

 

[Yellowburn10]

Yeah, I would say that if you're just focused on getting somewhere, the Mun is a better target, but a return trip will take a little more.

[RizzoTheRat]

Good point, if you're sending a probe and don't plan to bring it back, definitely go to the Mun first.

[s_gamer101]

12 hours ago, N_Danger said:

One advantage of Minmus first is that, as long as you land on the flats, a tall and skinny lander will work better there than trying the same lander on the Mun. When building a lander for Minmus you don't have to take into account the CG as much as you do the Mun.

 But I'll admit it is only a slight advantage.

I would recommend to avoid building tall and skinny landers in general if possible (I made some bad experiences with such designs). But yes, Minmus flats are a perfect landing spot for more or less every design. Anyway, I'd recommend trying to go to the Mun. Remember that you can (almost) always quicksafe.

 

[Leopard]

I tend to go Mun first, because the contracts for it come up first, I have a 'standard' mun lander I tend to use, its horribly over-engineered (as in the actual ascent stage typically isn't actually needed unless going for the poles or something) - by the time the minmus contracts come up I tend to just use the same thing

[magnemoe]

On 7/2/2020 at 8:25 PM, RizzoTheRat said:

Both take a similar amount of dV, you need more to get to Minmus but less to land and take off, so if you have the technology to go tone you can go to both.

Landing is easier on Minmus as there's big obvious flat places and less gravity to contend with.

It's easier to get to the Mun though as it's a simple transfer without the need for a plane change or launching in to an inclined orbit.

Personally I always go to the Mun first in a new game but that's only really because it's become a habit.

Benefit of Mun first is because its faster and you will get an contract for it who pays pretty well. 
This tend to unlock an Minmus contract. 
Benefit of Minmus first is the science payoff, you can also cut the travel time down to 3-5 days for 300-100 dV, something who can land on the Mun can pretty map most of the biomes on Minmus. 

You can launch both at once as the Mun one will return before your Minmus arrives, but you might want to hold the Minmus one off until return if you want to unlock stuff with the science returned from Mun. 
 

[Lord Aurelius]

Laythe is clearly the moon of choice. Blue skies, oceans and beaches as far as you can see. /s

On a more serious note, I would go for the Mun first. The slightly higher dV requirement is trivial compared to the much higher encounter difficulty of getting to Minmus.

Edited July 5, 2020 by Lord Aurelius

[Comte_Snek]

Huh I always go for Minmus first, although for me that has become the habit, so I can't really say I struggle with encountering minmus, mostly eyeballing personally. However the simplicity of encountering the Mun certainly can't be understated, so if you do find getting a Minmus encounter hard doing a slightly more beefy lander is probably gonna be worth it. I just really like going to Minmus so I always end up sending way more missions there than I need...

[RealKerbal3x]

I always go to the Mun first, out of habit. Despite Minmus being easier to land on, I feel like there's a progression from Mun to Minmus - once you've got landing on the Mun down, you should have no problem landing on Minmus - but now you've got to worry about Minmus' inclined orbit.

[Bej Kerman]

On 7/2/2020 at 7:25 PM, RizzoTheRat said:

Both take a similar amount of dV, you need more to get to Minmus but less to land and take off, so if you have the technology to go tone you can go to both.

Minmus doesn't take much more than the Mun to get to. Once you're on your way to the Mun, you're already going very quick and it doesn't take much to raise your apoapsis to Minmus.

[jasondweller]

Minmus is much easier to land on. Coming back is almost the same from both. 

 

[DStaal]

On 7/6/2020 at 7:43 AM, Bej Kerman said:

Minmus doesn't take much more than the Mun to get to. Once you're on your way to the Mun, you're already going very quick and it doesn't take much to raise your apoapsis to Minmus.

Really the biggest difference in dV is variability: Mun will take the same amount, depending on your piloting skill with your ship.  Minmus can vary by a couple hundred dV, depending on exactly where it is in the orbit.  (And therefore how much of a plane change you need to make.)

The other question is what else do you have going on in your save?  Minmus takes ~8 days to reach, Mun can be reached inside a day.  If you're watching for transfer windows, life support, etc., that can make a major difference.  In standard KSP with nothing else going on - it's a few seconds of timewarp.

[FlyingPete]

I tend to go to the Mun first and do a couple of landings. By that point, basically the same ship can go to Minmus which is much more interesting. Even better once you establish a base which is much simpler with earlier tech than on the Mun.

[magnemoe]

On 7/8/2020 at 11:21 PM, DStaal said:

Really the biggest difference in dV is variability: Mun will take the same amount, depending on your piloting skill with your ship.  Minmus can vary by a couple hundred dV, depending on exactly where it is in the orbit.  (And therefore how much of a plane change you need to make.)

The other question is what else do you have going on in your save?  Minmus takes ~8 days to reach, Mun can be reached inside a day.  If you're watching for transfer windows, life support, etc., that can make a major difference.  In standard KSP with nothing else going on - it's a few seconds of timewarp.

You can get transfer time down to 4-5 days using 2-400 m/s more but that is more advanced trajectories. 

Started an new game with 1.10, it ended up being pretty Mun focused. After the Mun orbit mission next up was an mun landing, here I manged to throw more weight than usual and managed to sample 4 biomes on the Mun who was perfect as I unlocked the graviton detector and the 2.5 m fairing. 

R7 Minmus1, R7 Mun2 and R7B Mun3 had an 1.5x and 2x lager transfer stage, transfer stage can dock with docking port on bottom of one of the drop tanks. Its important to move science from the outside science storage module to cockpit before staging. 
With refueling in orbit I could have two landing areas on the Mun, or multiple on Minus, docked twice on Minmus but did not run with an fully loaded lander as it wasted fuel. One refueling around then half done and one then 1+ polar missed. 

[KerikBalm]

Use a mod, swap orbits of Mun and Minmus, the decision becomes obvious: Minmus.

Seriously, they should have done that from the start, its way better for player progression.

[Minmus Taster]

I would segust minmus easier to land on with a low amount deltaV required to land.

Also it's good to practice getting to objects with inclined orbits minmus has and inclined orbit and its close by so it's worth a trip a least sometime early in the game.

Plus in my opinion it's the best out of the two moons for just being a silly interesting place to visit

 

 

 

[Lewie]

I’d suggest that you go to the mun first, just so you can get the experience of orbital maneuvers. Minmus is much easier to land on,  but as long as you use the retrograde auto-hold, the mun is a breeze to land on. Make sure to use the fine throttle controls, it allows for a very soft touchdown.

[SJC_Hacker]

If you want to be a traditionalist, then the Mun first.

Munnus is much, much easier to land on.  And this is the part where beginners have the most trouble.  Takes longer to get to - like 6+ days depending on how you do your burn.    But it is obvious where the flat areas are.  On the Mun it is not so obvious.

If you are doing Munnus,  you should also match inclination prior to your transfer burn, although this is not absolutely necessary, it will make things easier if you have an equatorial orbit. 

For both the Mun and Munnus, If you don't orbit equatorially, try to land as close to the equator as possible, but also in a flat area.  The further away from the equator you land, the more polar your take off orbit becomes.  This makes it harder to get to get back in to Kerbin, in terms of dV cost and timing.   

Remember when you take off, launch east to get a equatorial orbit.  

Edited July 12, 2020 by SJC_Hacker

[Xyphos]

I recommend Minmus first; it takes more dV to get to/from but it's much easier to land and take off there. the only word of caution is the higher orbit means faster/hotter re-entry so be careful.
once you feel comfortable with landing and take-off, try Mun next.

I speak from experience because I lost many kerbals attempting Mun landings first.

Edited July 13, 2020 by Xyphos