What is so special about Duna?

[Benie]

I've seen a lot of Youtube videos who's owners say that Duna is their favorite planet to go to. So I went there as an unmanned rover to check out the hype of what's so cool about the Mars-like planet.

Upon touching down in a flat crater, all I saw was red ground, red rocks, and a somewhat red sky. So I went around trying to find something interesting. More rocks. More of the same ole stuff.

So, where's the hype? I think Eve is more fun because it looks interesting with its radioactive ground and toxic atmosphere. Problem is I don't know how to get my basic Space Station that's in orbit around Duna, there. But I'll figure that out at a later time.

Edited July 3, 2013 by Benie

[Evrion]

Perhaps Duna is popular due to the fact that NASA has rovers on Mars, so missions to Duna feel like you are imitating NASA.

Personally: I've crashed two landers so far and busted up one rover. So atm it's a "Bermuda Triangle" for me. I have another lander missions planned ...

[painking]

There's no anything anywhere. Eve's a giant purple rock, Kerbin is a giant blue/green rock, The mun, Ike, Tylo are all big grey rocks, Minmus and Vall are big teal rocks. Everything is giant, barren wastelands with -maybe- something of interesting every few thousand kilometers of travel.

[Pulstar]

It's because Duna is the easiest target for manned interplanetary exploration out of all. It's thin atmosphere allows easy aerobraking and landing while at the same time it doesn't make return from the surface too hard. Also it looks like Mars.

[Nasakev]

Duna is easy to reach and many people's first target after the Mun and Minmus, giving it sentimental value. It has several anomalies if you know where to look (no spoilers). It has more similarities to a real life planet than most of the others in the Kerbol system, and Mars is one of the most popular real life planets in both recent and older history. Who doesn't want to recreate Curiosity?

[Helix935]

yeah that is probably it but remember the challenge of KSP is to land on other worlds and because Duna is harder than eve to land on it makes it a good first step and also the fact that NASA landed on mars which Duna is based from adds to it.

also Evrion Nasa and Russia have crashed stuff on mars too so they have that same feeling towards mars too just so you know

[Capt'n Skunky]

There's no anything anywhere.

Not true. Several planets and moons have "anomalies" you can discover on the surface or in orbit.

Cheers!

Capt'n Skunky

KSP Community Manager

[Flixxbeatz]

I've seen a lot of Youtube videos who's owners say that Duna is their favorite planet to go to.

Well ask people here and they'll say that Laythe is their favorite place to go (and it's not even a planet, but a moon!). You can find tons of Laythe-related challenges, artworks, and mission reports around here. Duna? Ehh... not that much.

I have asked why before (thread got lost in the April Derp) and they gave me tons of reasons (primarily because of its Kerbin-like vibe, and jet engines).

[Tiron]

Because it's easy.

Jool, Dres, Eeloo, and Moho are all hard to get to, either because of the delta-V requirements (Moho, Jool, Eeloo), or because of irregular orbits (Dres, Eeloo), or both. Vall, Tylo, Bop, Pol, Eeloo, Dres, Ike, Gilly and Moho all lack atmospheres, which makes them much harder to land on. Some of them also have severe surface irregularities which makes it even harder. Gilly has the lowest gravity of anything, which makes it hard to land on at all. This leaves Eve and Duna as the easiest planets to reach and land on.

Eve has the third highest gravity (after Kerbol and Jool) and second thickest atmosphere (after Jool) of any body in the Kerbol system, making it extremely easy to land on, but extremely hard to take back off from. You'd have to land something with substantially more delta-V than is required to escape kerbin, and you can't use jets because there's no oxygen.

This leaves Duna. It has around twice the gravity of the Mun, but also has a (very thin) atmosphere. With good use of aerobraking, it can actually be easier to reach and land on Duna than to land on the Mun. And because of the low gravity and thin atmosphere, it's relatively easy to get off of: Duna's atmosphere at Datum is about as thick as Kerbin's at 8000 meters...and Duna's covered in highlands that are several KM above Datum, so you're fairly likely to end up with a surface pressure MUCH lower than that. Duna's downside? The thin atmosphere makes parachutes hardly work, so successful touchdown is a bit harder (in terms of both difficulty and frequently, in actual impact, which is why there's been so many weird landing methods for Mars probes) than on Laythe, Kerbin, or Eve.

Edit: As for Laythe, it has a fairly thick, oxygenated (!) atmosphere, but a surface almost entirely covered in oceans. This makes finding a landing spot harder...but as there's oxygen in the air, you can actually use jet engines there. It's fairly hard to get there, and once you get there, it's a PILOTING challenge to actually get to a landing spot and land there. And a lot more fun of a challenge than trying to vacuum land on irregular terrain.

Edited July 3, 2013 by Tiron