How long did you wait in your career for duna?

[ttnarg]

I would not want to do it with out docking ports but thats realy the only thing I would need from anything deep in the tech tree

The best I can remember.

mission 1) a command pod on the lunch pad

mission 2) a command pod on the runway (with goo)

mission 3) should of been orbit but was a mess up staging 30km high flight

mission 4) orbit and fly by of the moons.

mission 5) Minmus landing - (I waited till I had solar before I did this)

mission 6+) played with planes a bit but did not get much sci

mission 7(if you count all the planes as one mission)) Duna fly by and ike landing. (but I wish I did gilly)

this is as far as I got. I think I could of done a duna landing on 7 but as you can see I'm not in a rush I'm taking it easy not not building things that are too silly.

I not planing on doing a hard landing and take off till I have docking ports which I should have once I finish mission 7. If I went to gilly my next mission would of been duna and ike but I didnt plan that very well so my next mission might be laythe.

There is a lot of sci to be got by just getting out of kerbin SOI and going into a solor orbit. Should be easyer then a moon landing if you are not ready for a duna mission.

[Dweller_Benthos]

I went to Duna before I landed on the Mun or Minmus. After a few missions in orbit, then a few on the ground, I had the skippers I think, which was enough to get a probe out to Duna. It wasn't programmed to land, so much, as to crash on it (reference). I had it do as much science around Ike as I could before heading into an aerobrake for Duna, then with the last of the fuel deorbited for a lithobrake as it were. Did all the science I could on the way down. Then with the parts I unlocked from that, sent a few manned missions to the Mun and Minmus.

Like ttnarg, I also fooled around with planes a lot, landing here and there for different biome science which really didn't amount to much, then spent too much time trying to get a flag at the exact north pole. Helpful hint, don't try to walk a Kerbal across the exact north pole, the kraken will rear it's ugly head and eat him whole. Had to force quit the game when a misplanted flag at the north pole got the game stuck in a loop waiting for me to enter the flag and plaque data into a dialog that never appeared because the flag was technically under ground. When I started the game up again, I went to see how the Kerbal was doing and he was laying on his side at the pole. I tried to move him to get back to the plane and he disappeared in a puff of smoke, mission report said he hit the ground too hard.

[Luckless]

I went to Duna fairly early. First fly by return probe mission attempts were before I had docking ports or nuclear engines. It is easy enough to do if you're willing to abuse aerobraking.

[Richy teh space man]

Went once I had the poodle engine and small docking ports. That was more then enough to land on Duna, Ike, and return home with oodles of science done.

[DisarmingBaton5]

I left Kerbin's SOI on a Solar mission before even a Mun or Minmus landing, but still have not done an interplanetary mission. There is a probe going to Jool soon, and I think the window afterward is a Duna or Eve window, so a manned mission to Duna/Ike or Gilly is coming next.

[-RanZ-]

You don't need nukes to get to Duna, even manned missions chemical engines work.

[ttnarg]

"You don't need nukes to get to Duna"

You dont need to get to Duna to get nukes.

Its all about what you want to do.

I would happerly do a fly-by duna mision as soon as I've unlock decuplers. But would not do a landing and return mission till I had docking ports. (but I could if I wanted to i.e. for a challange)

[Ralathon]

Not even out of the Kerbin system yet. I simply couldn't. I play with Remotetech (so no probes to other planets till I unlock long range dishes) and Ioncross (no manned missions to other systems until I have O2 recyclers).

So far my career mode looked like this:

Polar orbit into Mun free return flyby (capsule has just enough O2 to survive this)

Manned mun landing.

Setting up a constellation around Kerbin

Setting up a constellation around the mun

SCANsat maps of both Kerbin and the mun

mun hopper 1 through 3 using the maps made by the previous mission (1-2 because I unlocked seismometers and gravioli detectors. 2-3 because I misjudged a burn)

Currently I finally have access to big dishes, so the next step is setting up a constellation that's capable of interstellar communication. After that I'll send out some probes to Duna and Jool to top off the science tree.

[Wahgineer]

If you read Stephen Baxter's Voyage, he talks about a manned mission to mars using chemical engines. In the end, you could just take his design and run with it.

[csanders]

Went to Duna before Nukes with this ship. I had docking ports, skippers and poodles.

I didn't take pictures on the trip, so I did a LKO mission to show the design:

Whoops. I totally forgot I borked the staging on this one. The top tanks were supposed to separate.

Once in parking orbit, this has some fuel left to assist on the burn to Duna

This goes the rest of the way. Aerobrakes on Duna to save fuel.

Landing craft and command module separated. The command module has the RCS fuel, and a probe attachment so it's unmanned. The lander is tricky to land on Duna, as it has a low TWR there. But it's doable.

Landing craft with tank separation.

Landing craft reconnected to command module. Bottom stage of lander separates to save weight. This would take me back to Kerbin if I was in Duna orbit, after I transferred any excess fuel from the lander to the command module.

Separate on reentry.

Ta-dah!

Edited November 6, 2013 by csanders

[MalfunctionM1Ke]

I gathered all the Science it Needs for the NERVA's on Kerbin and its Moons. Then I went right over to Ike & Duna.

[Starwhip]

Once I landed on Minmus twice I sent a probe lander to Duna. The damn thing would not stand up straight, but I got the science.

[LostElement]

First flight...

[SuperWeegee4000]

Recently I got a probe into orbit, did a couple of Ike flybys, and got real close to the atmosphere. ALL THE SCIENCE.

[SRV Ron]

Soon as I had the Stayputnik and solar panels, it was off to a Voyager mission.

Then, with fuel lines, off to a Duna and Eve landing.

Other probes using the same launcher, are waiting for a Jool intercept window. I will need aerobraking to get an orbit and landing on Laythe and other moons, or drop a probe onto Jool.

[lazarus1024]

After Duna was introduced, naturally, since I started playing before there was anything other than Kerbin and the Mun.

Duna still owns my heart as my favorite destination. Relatively easy to get to, interesting. Its got it's own moon that can be fun to go to and can make an interesting challenge as a tripartite mission (hit up Ike, then go to Duna and then back to Kerbin).

[SargeRho]

Until the Nuke engine. I went to Eve with a chemical engine prior to Duna in fact.

[Eric S]

I tend to go to Duna as soon as I have ladders and fuel lines, but not before then, so usually about my third mission, fourth if I decide to go to Eve first, though I usually do Duna first. I have gone there as my first mission, but I just find it more hassle than it's worth that early.

[lazarus1024]

Scratch what I said early. Reading comprehension > me.

I missed the "in career" part. I haven't yet gone to Duna, but I am darned close to. I might do it tonight (I have all Tier 4 and some of Tier 5 done). I am thinking I'll send a probe carrier with an orbiter and a lander. I'll do a manned mission later.

I am thinking I might do Eve first though.

[JazzXP]

I did it after I got docking ports and used 909's for the transfer. Unfortunately I didn't have enough fuel for the return, so I sent another mission with a probe attached. I then docked to that ship for the return.

[FlamedSteak]

I waited until I got the lv-n and used it for the transfer and insertion burns, after that I used the 909 for orbital and deceleration burns.

[Eric S]

To better address the actual questions, here's the type of ship I usually use for my first trip to Duna. If you've gone far enough into the tech tree to get fuel lines, the folding solar panels, and ladders, you probably have all the parts you need, and you can probably fudge the folding solar panels.

NOTE: Those those that find asparagus staging offensive should skip this.

Basically, the mission profile goes something like this:

The six asparagus boosters all get dropped before the craft reaches orbit, but the center stack still has over half it's delta-v remaining.

The center stack handles the transfer burn to Duna with plenty to spare.

At Duna, I do an aerobrake pass that leaves me with an apoapsis at about the height of Ike.

If I got lucky and have an intercept with Ike, I fine tune the intercept and circularize using the transfer stage. Otherwise, I raise the periapsis out of Duna's atmosphere and wait for Ike to be in the right place for an intercept that doesn't require a large adjustment.

Finally, I'm in orbit around Ike and still have some of the central stack left, so I use the central stack to start my deorbit burn. This way, the central stack impacts Ike and I minimize my debris. I wind up landing using the first pair of drop tanks on the lander. They've got fuel lines run so that the first pair empty, then the second pair empty, and then it uses the center stack fuel tank which is the smallest. The landing gear are attached to the second pair of drop tanks, though I could probably move them to the first pair so that they drop sooner, since I usually land on Duna before I use up all the fuel from the first pair of drop tanks.

Anyway, after landing at Ike, I take off, and put myself in a return trajectory that's far enough into Duna's atmosphere that aerobraking will ensure that I land rather than skip off for another orbit, but not so far that I won't have adequate time for the parachutes to slow me down.

The Duna landing is handled mostly by parachute. With the right periapsis, the craft has no problems with going to fast when the chutes fully deploy, and two radial chutes bring that craft down at a rate of 15-20 m/s, so a short burst of thrust just before touchdown drops the landing speed to under 5 m/s.

Takeoff is straight forward, the OP Rockomax 48-7s would have a TWR of 1.39 even if that lander was completely topped off with fuel, though the first set of drop tanks usually get dropped in the ascent. The second set of drop tanks usually get dropped while I'm doing the transfer burn to get back to Kerbin (the only bit of debris that doesn't either impact something or burn up on reentry).

Arriving back at Kerbin, I aerobrake and land/splash down.

Now, all of this is with a craft that tops out at 9.6 km/s of delta-v, not that much more than I'd use to go to the Mun and back. In fact, this is only a slightly refined version of a craft that originally went to the Mun where the intent was to have enough delta-v in the lander to be able to do a few suborbital hops and hit a few extra biomes.

You'll see a lot of aerobraking in this mission description. If I had to guess, I'd say that this craft could make it without aerobraking, but there wouldn't be any delta-v reserved for "oops" situations. So I guess the lesson to be learned is to learn aerobraking, it can really be your friend on a Duna round trip.

[goldenpeach]

As I didn't tried to go on Duna when playing career mode( I did achieve to land on Duna but only after I unlocked all the tech tree,when I was somewhat bored and wanted something new) I can't reaaly talk about this.

However, if I made a new career mode, I think I would wait until I unlocked the nukes, docking port and RTG(or solar panel).

[CaptainArchmage]

So far I have ships that can make it out to Duna or Eve (using 909s), and I have probes, so it should be do-able. Before that, though, I want to explore the Mün a little more.

Edit: I don't have fuel lines for asparagus staging yet, but I don't think it is that necessary.

[KerbinExplorer]

Duna was the destination of my first interplanetary journey, it was an awesome experience! Took 2 tries to get successfully into orbit and a couple more to safely land