Easiest planet to reach.

[Radthereptile]

I have been playing KSP for a while. I've gone to Mun and Minmus and returned several times. I'm wondering what planet would be the easiest to get to next?

[Dictatorshipper]

Eve needs the least Delta-V and you can land on it with just a parachute, but it's almost impossible to take off from. Duna needs a bit more Delta-V and is harder to land on, but you can take off from it easily.

[BlueSubstance]

Eve is the easiest planet to reach, I think. You only need a Kerbal X rocket with a Atomic Motor Engine.

[regex]

Duna is the most practical for getting there and back because the entire delta-V budget, including landing and ascent, is pretty low.

[Kerbonautical]

I'd vote for Duna if your planning on returning, it's a lot more plausible than Eve however it's still not exactly easy. It's gonna take some planning, possibly a few tries and most likely the construction of an interplanetary vessel from orbit.

Both Eve and Duna are relatively easy to reach if your only doing a one way trip though, in which case I would vote Eve since the atmosphere will grab you earlier so takes less Delta-V to deorbit. Just bear in mind that on Eve you can take a heavy vessel pretty easily with a good number of parachutes and only a small amount of thrust to land safely whereas on Duna the atmosphere will do less work for you, so you may need a bit more Delta-V with a heavy lander/rover. I can't speak for lighter crafts as I haven't tried it myself yet.

Also one more vote for an unmanned one way trip to Eve from me purely for the sights, it makes Duna look pretty boring in comparison if you ask me thanks to the sunrise combining with the atmosphere.

[Kromey]

Easiest to get to? Easy: Kerbin!

(Sorry, someone had to go there, and I'm surprised it had to be me, what with 4 other replies already!!)

My vote would be Duna if you plan to return, or Eve if you're just going one-way. The ascent from Eve requires so much delta-V that you could almost get all the way to Eeloo and back before you could land and return from Eve! Duna, on the other hand, is barely any additional delta-V to get to than Eve (if you build a ship capable of getting to Eve orbit, odds are it's also capable of getting to Duna orbit, unless you're an extreme penny-pincher and very conscious of having only exactly the delta-V budget you need); they're so close in that regard that I consider them both equal challenges to reach.

That's why Duna is my first target beyond Minmus.

That said, Eve's a whole helluva lot prettier -- but then again purple is my favorite color...

[aNewHope]

Duna for sure! U only need a bit more delta v (200m/s) than to get to Minimus. U can aerobrake (Pe at around 13 km) and land mostly by parachutes. Also it is very easy to take off from Duna and to get back home.

I once built a minimalistic Duna & Back 1 man mission and the craft was smaller, than any mun-rocket I used before.

[TheDarkStar]

If you're sending one-way probes (or stranding Kerbals), go to Eve. The dense atmosphere and low dV cost to get there makes it easy to get to and land on. If you want to return a Kerbal, go to Duna. Duna has an atmosphere suitable for aerobraking, but is thin enough not to be overly prohibitive. Duna also has lower gravity.

[FirstSecondThird]

If you want to get the most science and not take years worth of effort to get to another planet. Try Duna!

I have made it to all planets, and a lot of course corrections have to do with changing your inclinations and getting velocities right. Now if I am not clear, Duna is the easiest for me to get to, overall because all you need to do is get your ascending and descending nodes at 0.0 degrees, and then get your periapsis to intersect your orbit with Duna's, then you will see a closest encounter, THAT IS GOOD!, all you really need to do make a maneuver node and play around with the prograde and retrograde handles on the maneuver node editor to see if you get an encounter, and sure enough, if you followed all my instructions, you will get one.

[foxkill2342]

Kerbin is pretty easy to reach.

[KerikBalm]

Excludng Kerbin (come on guys, you know what he meant), Duna and Eve are both pretty darn easy to reach.

From a 100km orbit, you need a dV of 1034 m/s to get to Duna, and 1061 m/s to get to Eve, according to:

http://alexmoon.github.io/ksp/

Looking at the first transfer windows from day 1.

This difference is so small, it will easily get lost in the noise from imperfect maneuver executions and course corrections.

Eve's orbit is more inclined than Duna's, but its SOI is also bigger.

Duna also has a large moon (Ike) that may screw up your trajectory.

Eve's atmosphere is a lot thicker, so its easier to aerobrake - Many times in the begining I came in too high, and failed to aerocapture.

As far as a safe landing: Duna's thin atmosphere presents more problems than Eve's stronger gravity.

Eve has oceans that you may want to avoid (or you may not, maybe you don't care where you land or what happens to your probe)

Eve's atmosphere is 5x thicker than kerbin atmosphere... 25x thicker than Duna's

while its gravity is

1.7x higher than Kerbin's.... 5.7x higher than Duna's

If you plan on returning... Duna, no question.

[moogoob]

Have to second Eve. Light on the delta-v compared to Duna and easier to parachute in. Just send unmanned lander robots and stuff so you don't have mount an extremely difficult rescue.

If you're trying to do a return mission, I'd say Duna's your best bet.

[Thanny]

If you plan on returning, Duna, and only Duna. You can aerocapture to avoid almost all of the insertion burn (shoot for slightly above 12km, then adjust and circularize, unless you want to spend another orbit adjusting periapsis and aerobraking further). And you can absolutely land on nothing but parachutes. It adds weight that you'll need to haul back off the surface, but that part is pretty easy, especially since you won't need to burn any fuel on the descent. And if you do your de-orbit burn while attached to the main ship - you are using a separate lander, right? - you can detach and burn the main ship back into orbit, leaving your lander with no fuel loss at all on the ground.

Eve is just about as easy to get to, and requires less parachutes to land on, but the high gravity makes landing more perilous for ship integrity (when you're done adding struts, add some more struts), not to mention insane fuel requirements for ascending back to orbit. To mitigate the latter problem, you need to exacerbate the next to last problem by landing on elevated, uneven terrain. My first attempt couldn't land without breaking at least one engine, so I gave up and sent the ship back to Kerbin. Still waiting on my monstrous second attempt to get to its launch window (or fourth, rather, as I had two previous attempts in earlier saves that I pretty much abandoned with KSP update releases).

And while Eve requires a ton of delta V to leave the surface, Moho requires a ton to get there and back, whether or not you land on the surface.

So I'd say Duna if you intend to land at all.

[merendel]

Duna is in some ways easier than mun. Takes a bit more dV to get there than to mun but this is offset by haveing an atmosphere to aerobreak once you arrive to capture. Landing you can let the atmosphere and parachutes do most of the work, you may need some thrust to land safely depending on number of chutes, mass and your landing altitude. Takeing back off to orbit takes about as much as a full land and takeoff cycle on mun. You will probably need to pack a bit more fuel for your transfer stages than for a mun mission but not alot more. The same tech with a few spare tanks will work for both missions.

[FishInferno]

When you think about it, the Mun could be the easiest "planet' to reach. The Mun is to Kerbin as Kerbin is to Kerbol. The Mun is a moon, yes, but isnt Kerbin also a moon, too? They both orbit around a parent body. Heck, even the Sun orbits around the center of the Milky Way.

LOL i had to be a smart Alec there, I go for Duna

[Kerano]

And you can absolutely land on nothing but parachutes. It adds weight that you'll need to haul back off the surface...

Or not, if you attach all the parachutes to radial decouplers and eject them after you land. Of course then you only get the one landing, which is not so useful if you want to return to a different part of the surface later (which will probably be the case once Duna has biomes).

[No one]

If you want to go one-way, definitely Eve. If you want to land and return, definitely Dres.

As soon as you get the Atomic Rocket, Delta-V ceases to be a problem so they're both easy to reach. Dres has less surface gravity and no atmosphere, it's basically just like landing on the Mun, except it's a bit harder to get to. You can take off and return all the way to Kerbin with nothing but an Ion Thruster.

[ArmchairGravy]

If you're sending one-way probes (or stranding Kerbals), go to Eve. The dense atmosphere and low dV cost to get there makes it easy to get to and land on. If you want to return a Kerbal, go to Duna. Duna has an atmosphere suitable for aerobraking, but is thin enough not to be overly prohibitive. Duna also has lower gravity.

Exactly this. So do both! This way you'll get a feel for sunward and antisunward trajectories. Once you get that the system is your oyster.

[Superfluous J]

Not a planet, but if you are REALLY good at rendezvous (because it's more of a rendezvous than an intercept) I believe Gilly is the single lowest dV target out there. A quick handwavy calculation based on the numbers in a dV map tells me it's about 900dV less to get to Gilly and return to Kerbin, than it is to get to Duna and return to Kerbin. This is assuming you aerobrake at Eve to get to Gilly, at Duna to land there, and at Kerbin when coming home to the greatest effect in all 3 cases.

[merendel]

Not a planet, but if you are REALLY good at rendezvous (because it's more of a rendezvous than an intercept) I believe Gilly is the single lowest dV target out there. A quick handwavy calculation based on the numbers in a dV map tells me it's about 900dV less to get to Gilly and return to Kerbin, than it is to get to Duna and return to Kerbin. This is assuming you aerobrake at Eve to get to Gilly, at Duna to land there, and at Kerbin when coming home to the greatest effect in all 3 cases.

Not to mention you can drop a probe into eve's atmo while your there. touch more fuel on the outbound leg from kerbin to send an extra science package on a parachute and you get some extra transmited science for almost free. And ya gilly has more in common with docking than landing on it. May as well be a space station 26km accross thats in a funky orbit around eve for all the gravity it has.

[LethalDose]

So, as everyone has mentioned before, Duna and Eve are the easiest planets to approach and orbit.

For landings, though, it's challenging to reach the surface of these planets and return. Eve surface return missions are much more difficult than Duna surface return missions, but the latter are not trivial. However, both these planets have satellites that are easy to land on.

Landing on Gilly is very similar to landing on Minmus, and landing on Ike is similar to landing on the Mun. These moons are good targets to practice landings on before aiming for the surfaces of planets.

[Oggula]

I haven't seen anyone mention Jool yet.

When I first went to planets in 0.17 I went to Duna first, thinking it would be easy, but all three of my ships missed. It was only my second expedition to Jool that 'succeeded' (if you call smashing into Tylo at 8km/s a success).

The thing is that unless you're a complete moron you can easily design a ship with the dv to reach any planet on the outward journey, getting a large intercept window is the real problem for a newbie.

[magnemoe]

Not to mention you can drop a probe into eve's atmo while your there. touch more fuel on the outbound leg from kerbin to send an extra science package on a parachute and you get some extra transmited science for almost free. And ya gilly has more in common with docking than landing on it. May as well be a space station 26km accross thats in a funky orbit around eve for all the gravity it has.

Yes, in carrier the probe with some science equipment will also do the explore Eve achievement and unlock Gilly, unless you do Duna or Ike first.

The tips for reaching Gilly is that you don't want to meet it close to its Ap but on its outer part of its orbit as the orbital injection burn will be far less.

[KerikBalm]

When you think about it, the Mun could be the easiest "planet' to reach. The Mun is to Kerbin as Kerbin is to Kerbol. The Mun is a moon, yes, but isnt Kerbin also a moon, too? They both orbit around a parent body. Heck, even the Sun orbits around the center of the Milky Way.

LOL i had to be a smart Alec there, I go for Duna

Well, from my point of view, it didn't come across as very smart... more like you don't know what a planet is.

However, it is sort of similar to a point that can be made:

You can practice an interplanetary transfer from Kerbin to another planet, by practicing a transfer from the Mun to Minmus or vice versa.

They are exactly analagous to interplanetary transfers, but the launch windows are much more frequent, and the dV needed to transfer is much lower (of course, that is not including the dV that you need to get to one of the moons in the first place- for a Kerbin->Mun->minmus trip, you could basically do a Kerbin-> Duna trip)

If you want to go one-way, definitely Eve. If you want to land and return, definitely Dres.

As soon as you get the Atomic Rocket, Delta-V ceases to be a problem so they're both easy to reach. Dres has less surface gravity and no atmosphere, it's basically just like landing on the Mun, except it's a bit harder to get to. You can take off and return all the way to Kerbin with nothing but an Ion Thruster.

Dres? You've got to be kidding me.

#1) the Delta-V doesn't cease to be a problem - note there are many threads about long burn times with LV-Ns... so there's added complications of perapsis kicking, poor TWRs, more of a requirement for orbital rendevous if you intend to return, etc.

FWIW, it takes ~4.5x the delta V to land on dres, than to land on Duna.

1034 for aerocapture at duna (from a 100km Kerbin orbit) vs 3989 m/s for a capture into a 12km orbit on dres - and another ~550 m/s to actually land

for a total of about 4550 for Dres vs 1050 for Duna.

#2)Airless bodies are harder to land on, IMO. Its pretty easy to pop chutes, and just control descent rate with a touch of throttle.

Its why a landing on Tylo is much harder than a landing on Kerbin (or Laythe), despite the lower gravity.

#3) Dres's orbit is highly inclined, and launch windows are more irregular as far as dV requirements (there is that rate launch window where you can arrive just at the AN/DN and ignore the inclination, all other launch windows require varying amounts of plane changing).

[BlackAdder128]

Dres? You've got to be kidding me.

#1) the Delta-V doesn't cease to be a problem - note there are many threads about long burn times with LV-Ns... so there's added complications of perapsis kicking, poor TWRs, more of a requirement for orbital rendevous if you intend to return, etc.

FWIW, it takes ~4.5x the delta V to land on dres, than to land on Duna.

1034 for aerocapture at duna (from a 100km Kerbin orbit) vs 3989 m/s for a capture into a 12km orbit on dres - and another ~550 m/s to actually land

for a total of about 4550 for Dres vs 1050 for Duna.

#2)Airless bodies are harder to land on, IMO. Its pretty easy to pop chutes, and just control descent rate with a touch of throttle.

Its why a landing on Tylo is much harder than a landing on Kerbin (or Laythe), despite the lower gravity.

#3) Dres's orbit is highly inclined, and launch windows are more irregular as far as dV requirements (there is that rate launch window where you can arrive just at the AN/DN and ignore the inclination, all other launch windows require varying amounts of plane changing).

The funny thing is, one of my first landers to reliably get to Duna in career mode happily made it to Dres and back. Of course, that's back when "career mode" was just "science mode" and I built 300+ part monstrocities with huge amount of overkill to go everywhere. My Munar and Dunar rockets these days are designed to be cost efficient for .25, and they're a fraction of the size of the rockets I used to build. My piloting has improved nearly as much since those days, too, so that the delta-v transfer plot actually nearly matches what I see in practice.

It just seems like everything is hard in KSP... the first time. After that, it becomes nearly routine, but I keep finding new goals to hit and more efficient ways to do things I used to do inefficiently.