Went to Duna and back!

[LtHeckard]

This might not be so exciting to people who go to Jool and back without breaking a sweat, but I actually sent a Lander to Duna and then I rendezvoused with an orbiting fuel station and returned to Kerbin! This is my first successful interplanetary lander that I actually returned to Kerbin, and I just thought I'd let you guys know what I've been up to.

[Dizzle]

Awesome! It feels great to bring live Kerbals home from interplanetary space.

[Commissioner Tadpole]

Congratulations! And I haven't been to Jool myself, either!

[LtHeckard]

Thanks! And be sure to visit Jool sometime! That planet has all sorts of things you can explore.

[Lazro]

I remember how I felt when I first did that...much happiness was to be had.

Congrats!

[LtHeckard]

Thanks man. I have yet to do it again, maybe on another planet.

[Leatherneck]

Great job!

I only just got my first rover onto Duna about an hour ago, which you'd think I'd have accomplished sooner with 176 hours put into KSP. Partly out of procrastination, partly to master the Mun/Minmus and Docking, and partly because I thought it was going to be far more daunting. Fortunately, it was not nearly as bad as I thought it would be. I may have experienced rapid vehicle dis-assembly with the sky crane in the process, but I got the rover on the surface long enough to transmit some science. Too bad I forgot a solar panel...

However, I did get a good spot with the rover to land on, so I think a manned mission is the next step. I agree that it is really even more rewarding though when you make a manned round trip.

[Moar Boosters]

In many ways Duna is nicer than the joolian moons. The red atmposphere is so beautiful and there's quite a variety of places to land and check out. The margin between the regular surface and the icecap is one of the nicest places. It doesn't change colour suddenly, it blends through all sorts of pinks before finally going white.

[Galileo Kerbonaut]

I still get the chills whenever I home in to planet other than Kerbin... I never get tired of that, whether it is Moho or Eeloo or anything in between.

[panfish5]

I have only done one interplanetary return mission on ike. I completely over engineered on everything and when I got back to Kerbin I only used 3/4 of my tank.

I plan on doing a return mission from a joolian moon or grand tour of all the moons but haven't done anything yet. (Ikes creepy man once I sent a one way mission there and 2 of the three kerbals died due to accidents...)

[CoriW]

Congratulations!

On my save I try to only use time warp when necessary and not for interplanetary ships. This of course results in tons of missions within Kerbin's SoI while I wait for my interplanetary ones to reach their destinations, although KSP usually updates before any of them can get anywhere... xD

[jsfalconero]

Congratulations Lieutenant! Same goes to all the first time planetary landers on this thread. Keep up the good work! Once you've mastered the art of interplanetary transfers the whole system opens up to you.

Are you in career or sandbox mode? I'll be honest, I literally visited every moon in the game before I even tried for Duna on my career save. You're quite likely doing better than I am!

[FlamedSteak]

Nothing beats the first Mun landing, but the first Duna landing is a close second.

[DeathFromBelow]

Congrats! The first successful Duna mission feels as good as mastering docking or making it back from the Mun for the first time.

What do you want to do next? Back in my .18.4 save I decided to head on to Laythe after landing on Duna a couple times. In .22 my capstone was sending a big rover to Duna for some mountain climbing day trips. That's the great thing about this game, it seems like there's always another engineering challenge to try.

[SkyHook]

BOOM! Welcome to the Red Planet Club!

[LtHeckard]

I was on Sandbox, but I did it all without cheating! I do feel quite proud of myself.

[Brotoro]

Good job! I remember how amazed I was that I could manage to rendezvous and dock two ships around faraway planets (with the added incentive that if you don't do it, you aren't getting home).