Minmus vs. Laythe - Which moon would be better for a colony?

[Bigcheecho]

Because I can.

For those who don't know about the two, here's the pros and cons for a colony on each moon by footman04:

Minmus

+ Frozen water.

+ Easy to resupply from Kerbin.

+ Food could be grown in underground shelters using thawed water.

+ Nuclear Engines operate at high efficiency due to the lack of an atmosphere. This would reduce fuel requirements.

+ A completely solid surface means that kethane deposits could be mined at any point on the planet.

+ Long term habitats could be dug into the mountains and ground to shelter against solar radiation.

- Solar radiation would irradiate any Kerbal who ventured onto the surface without the proper gear.

- Very little gravity at all would result in physiological changes over the long term for any kerbals who lived there.

- Can Kerbals reproduce in low gravity? I do not know.

Laythe

+ Breathable atmosphere.

+ Atmosphere allows for parachutes to assist with large landers.

+ Liquid water..

- .. That's filled with ammonia, which is very difficult to separate from water.

- Radiation from Jool would fry any Kerbal not in shelter.

- The water covered surface would make kethane mining less viable.

- Underground shelters are not viable due to water-saturated soil on very small islands.

- The combination of an atmosphere and oceans would result in weather patterns that could pose a threat to a surface colony.

- Resupply and emergency aid would be near impossible outside of ships sent at intervals.

Edited July 28, 2013 by Bigcheecho

[khyron42]

Building a colony on Minmus is almost too easy - whereas with Laythe, the higher challenge is so much more fulfilling when you suceed!

Also, missing from the Minmus pros / Laythe cons: Gravity. It will be somewhat harder to do targetted landings on Laythe, and MUCH harder to send anything back to orbit from Laythe.

[skyace65]

I'd say definitely Minimus. if you could establish a working colony you could have spaceships take off from there not using nearly the amount of fuel they would from Kerbin, and it's the last stop out of the system

[footman04]

Minmus

+ Frozen water.

+ Easy to resupply from Kerbin.

+ Food could be grown in underground shelters using thawed water.

+ Nuclear Engines operate at high efficiency due to the lack of an atmosphere. This would reduce fuel requirements.

+ A completely solid surface means that kethane deposits could be mined at any point on the planet.

+ Long term habitats could be dug into the mountains and ground to shelter against solar radiation.

- Solar radiation would irradiate any Kerbal who ventured onto the surface without the proper gear.

- Very little gravity at all would result in physiological changes over the long term for any kerbals who lived there.

- Can Kerbals reproduce in low gravity? I do not know.

Laythe

+ Breathable atmosphere.

+ Atmosphere allows for parachutes to assist with large landers.

+ Liquid water..

- .. That's filled with ammonia, which is very difficult to separate from water.

- Radiation from Jool would fry any Kerbal not in shelter.

- The water covered surface would make kethane mining less viable.

- Underground shelters are not viable due to water-saturated soil on very small islands.

- The combination of an atmosphere and oceans would result in weather patterns that could pose a threat to a surface colony.

- Resupply and emergency aid would be near impossible outside of ships sent at intervals.

Edited July 27, 2013 by footman04

[rodion]

An issue I find with Laythe is that due to its magnetic attraction to all KSP mission planners, it is saturated with bases and explorers on other save games, many better and more dedicated than I'm prepared to do myself - Brotoro alone has explored, mapped and generally experienced Laythe so excellently already that I feel I could barely learn or enjoy much more about it if I took the time to do it all myself. Minmus seems a little bit more mysterious and virgin by comparison, but due to its small, rocky and airless nature with few sightseeing points it seems like any long-term mission would get old fast, past the initial excitement of landing all of your components and Kerbals. Plus, practical exploration of its surface might also be annoying seeing as rovers and Kerbals mostly seem to launch themselves at near-escape velocity whenever they hit a bump or need to navigate a slope.

[MrPopcup]

It depends on you..

what I mean is, if you have time, and want to send huge bases at once ( dock stuff and send them ) , the place would be laythe, because laythe has an atmosphere which would seriously help you land easily, with using a bit of thrust when close to the ground, the problem is fuel and time, if you can send ( or make ) rockets to dock/launch and reach laythe then you have no problem, on the other hand, minmus is easy to encounter, really low gravity which requires a bit of fuel and most important, as mentioned above, you can mine kethane anywhere, while on laythe the planet is like 90% liquid and 10% land, for me i'd choose laythe, more challenging and after you finish your base, you can enjoy the view of jool/send probes from your base to jool's moons. i'd say it's a DRAW between both. the choice is up to you, but again I recommend laythe, after you finish the base you'll know what I'm talking about x)

[Scotius]

Minmus makes most sense as an industrial base. Low gravity, no air, readily available water that can be turned into rocket fuel and life support components. And it is both relatively easily reachable from Kerbin AND on the edge of Kerbin's SoI. Small burn and you are interplanetary. Laythe on the other hand...it's far away, it's hard to reach, requires lots of fuel and time. Jool's radiation (theoretically) is lethal. But let's face it - as of now it's an only prime estate in Kerbol system except Kerbin. Liquid water, significant amount of oxygen in atmosphere, temperature still in the comfort zone for Kerbals (if they are similiar to humans in this matter - privately i consider Laythe's climate to be comparable to Earth's Arctic. It's not ideal, but several peoples like Inuits manage to live there). Out of the rest of "habitable" planets Duna is a frozen, barren wasteland. And Eve is Hell, period.

[Kimberly]

I think Laythe is definitely the best candidate for long-term habitation. It would take a great deal of investment, but once you set up shop it would be quite alright--an underwater base would be well-protected from radiation and potentially violent weather, the climate control systems can get oxygen from the air to supplement recycling systems, and water can supplement the recycling systems as well. It's not inconceivable that Laythe could be terraformed to be more like Kerbin in the long run. Laythe is capable of a great deal of autonomy, especially because there are low-gravity non-atmospheric moons of Jool from which resources can be mined.

On Minmus, you have no reason to send a manned mission. Any people there are totally reliant on Kerbin. The communications delay with Kerbin is very small and you can easily send maintenance missions, so why not just have your industry on Minmus be fully robotic? It's not worth more than a scientific outpost, at best.

[Dortmunder]

Minmus orbits Kerbin

So if anything were to happen to Kerbin, who knows what would happen to Minmus

So I guess Laythe is a better "best bet" in a real scenario in that regard.

[spikeyhat09]

minmus cant be made of water, its too dense.

laythe's oceans are not made of water, its too cold even when saturated with salt (so im told)

[Brenok]

Minmus orbits Kerbin

So if anything were to happen to Kerbin, who knows what would happen to Minmus

So I guess Laythe is a better "best bet" in a real scenario in that regard.

What could this "anything" be? Giant asteroid? It would probably take an asteroid larger than Kerbin itself to mess with the orbit of Minmus.

[Armokh]

Scott Manley in one of his videos said that Minmus cant be made of water ice because its too dense, and is propably made of some kind of salt. Another fact is that atmosphere on Laythe would reduce radioactivity by reflecting it, and Laythe is bigger so it has stronger Van Allen belts which would also defend against radioactivity, plus oxygen makes you able to create fuel efficient exploration crafts.Temperature is also not killing zero absolute but at lower parts of atmosphere its even above 0.

Edited July 27, 2013 by Armokh

[bsalis]

It depends what you want out of it and the time you are willing to commit to it.

For a long term challenge involving sea, land, sky and space, Laythe is the place to be.

[satcharna]

For anything meant to be long-term or self-sustainable, Laythe is the obvious choice. The oxygenated atmosphere and readily available water, even with the likely contaminants in both, is just too valuable. Submerged bases offer a cheap and reliable protection against radiation.

For something short-term, Minmus is superior. It's a lot closer to Kerbin, and generally cheaper at the beginning. Nonetheless, it's too close to the sun to be composed of solid water, and so would need to ship in food, water and air from Kerbin, whereas Laythe could be made to sustain itself after some work.

[Bigcheecho]

Scott Manley in one of his videos said that Minmus cant be made of water ice because its too dense, and is propably made of some kind of salt. Another fact is that atmosphere on Laythe would reduce radioactivity by reflecting it, and Laythe is bigger so it has stronger Van Allen belts which would also defend against radioactivity, plus oxygen makes you able to create fuel efficient exploration crafts.Temperature is also not killing zero absolute but at lower parts of atmosphere its even above 0.

But then again, all the planets are WAAAY to dense to exist like the way they are IRL.

[SofusRud]

there is no way that Minmus consists of frozen water. Disregarding the whole density thing, Minmus is way too close to Kerbol to have frozen water, and not enough gravity to hold the water vapor in. I agree with Scott Manley, it has to be some sort of salt or something.

Laythe FTW

[bogpad]

go with laythe! Even I can do a station on minmus, and that means for every ambitious player, minmus bases are far to easy to do!

[Tiron]

Yeah I thought Minmus was supposed to be like Frozen Methane or some stupid.

As for Laythe...there's another thing to keep in mind. Molecular Oxygen is so stupidly reactive that it tends to combine with anything it can in the form of oxides (Which is why Mars for example is Red. Lots, and lots of Iron Oxide (Rust) in the dirt on the surface). So much so that you basically have to have some kind of process constantly replenishing it in order to keep it in the atmosphere, otherwise it all ends up in the rocks (or in the Air as CO2, again like Mars).

The only such process we know of that's able to free up oxygen on a large enough scale to result in an oxygenated atmosphere is... Photosynthesis.

Edited July 28, 2013 by Tiron

[PwnedDuck]

In my experience Laythe is about 4-5 degrees, so a chilly but reasonable autumn morning, and definitely hot enough for liquid water, without ammonia needed. If kerbals can do in 24 years what we haven't done in 50 (in terms of space exploration), whose to say they can't create some kind of personal radiation protection.

[Scotius]

Yeah. I really hope searching for life forms will be a part of science update we should get one day. Even if it's just microorganisms floating in Laythe's oceans, or hiding under Duna's ground.

[Kerbface]

In my experience Laythe is about 4-5 degrees, so a chilly but reasonable autumn morning, and definitely hot enough for liquid water, without ammonia needed. If kerbals can do in 24 years what we haven't done in 50 (in terms of space exploration), whose to say they can't create some kind of personal radiation protection.

Radiation protection = water. Just pack some bladders around habitats and pump it from the ocean.

EDIT: Oh wait, you mean for individual Kerbals, in which case, within our current understanding, no, they couldn't, unless it was very heavy. Unless of course Laythe's atmosphere and magnetic field block out most of the radiation from Jool.

[samstarman5]

Go to Minmus for the salt licks, then use Kerbin's gravity well to take you to Laythe for the beach resorts.

[Armokh]

NovaSilisko said that Laythe is going to have high radiation, and vulcanism...

[pigletx2]

It only has small- to-medium saltwaterlakes, spikey.

[Jouni]

Laythe would be a small colony far away from everywhere, ridiculously expensive to reach, while Minmus is basically the most central location in the entire Kerbol System. Ideally you would put your interplanetary infrastructure at Kerbin-Mun L1, but as KSP does not have Lagrangian points, the orbit of Minmus seems to be the next best alternative. That makes Minmus a good place for a major industrial colony.