Minmus Colony, What should i prepare for and how do i start.

[ThatKerbal]

I've recently landed on the mun (Without the assistance of mechjeb ) On my own for the first time! (My ribbons are achieved with help of Mechjeb So don't tell me their not truthful ) So I'm glad i finally got the hang of KSP. But back to my point. I'm going to start a minmus colony. But i'm curious on how do i start. What should i prepare for, And is minmus as hard to land on as mun was. (Trust me i gave up from trying to land perfectly after the 30th try) Because i don't wanna be stuck trying to 30 times. So yeah basically, What should i prepare for. How should i get this done. Is minmus hard to land on. Those 3 questions answered and anything else you can tell me.

Thanks in advance

~Lolaks

P.S. Aim for the stars...

Edited December 31, 2013 by ThatKerbal

[BlackBicycle]

Happy to share some of my conclusions about Minmus, from my last trip there:

Minmus is very easy to land on, and to orbit around. It is small, so the gravity is almost zero. You can land huge things on matchsticks. Not that you will need to. The easiest way to explore it is to go with a MK1 lander (the smallest lightest 1-man can), with a smallest fuel tank/engine, thin legs, stuff like that. Leave the main ship up in orbit. Go down where you please, do the thing, go up, dock transfer stuff, repeat. Getting the Lab module to the orbit there is easy too, so one lander with one goo and one matlab will do, long as you have a lab there. You might need a tanker of fuel every now and then to keep your lander fueled, but it is not too much of an effort and good fun too : )

Personally, I am going to make a full-blown mission around/on Minmus (and/or Mun) my next career (yep, restarting).

[Seret]

Minmus is much easier to land on than the Mun but slightly harder to get an encounter with, as you'll need to do a little plane change.

[Smidge204]

The gravity is so low it's actually kind of annoying, since a good bump can send things flying quite some distance. Don't expect rovers to get much traction either.

=Smidge=

[Keramane]

A very easy landing technique for Minmus is to utterly stop your orbit and just drop straight down like a rock. Well, a super light rock made of like, air and feathers, but a rock all the same. There are large flat planes on Minmus so ideally aim for those. You can let your velocity build while you descend, but when you get close-ish, burn it off to about... 100-50m/s. Note that when I say close I mean, really close, almost-seeing-your-shadow kind of close. Minmus' gravity is so light that if you overdo your deceleration, it takes aeons to get moving again.

Aaanywho, the reason why I like this method is that you don't need to worry about doing any lateral RCS maneuvers to negate your lateral velocity. You start more-or-less at a vertical plane, so any adjustments are pretty basic. You want to get your retrograde marker centered on the dot at the top of your little blue globe, so make adjustments in excess of your tretrograde to 'chase it' into place. Then, make tiny thrusts to adjust your speed as you see fit. Short bursts to avoid gaining lateral.

Keep your SAS on at all times too. When you land, you'll need it to actually counter any slopes you might have glued yourself too (my lab on Minmus, tilting at a good 20-30 degree angle, held up by SAS mostly).

Edited December 31, 2013 by Keramane
typos

[Duke23]

I've only been there manned once so far, my next trip has been shelved while I work on a new refueling station. Anyway, from the short time I spent there:

-It's pretty easy to land as long as you don't have any sideways momentum, it's very easy to knock your lander over if you're not coming straight down. If you aren't freaking out like I was the first try, you can use RCS/SAS to keep from falling over as long as it's not too bad.

-Be VERY CAREFUL with rovers. I managed to get one up to around 18m/s surface speed and then I came up on a small ridge I didn't see and went airborne, coming down on one wheel. The stupid thing tumbled forever (but didn't break!) before landing upside down and tossing Jeb out on his face. Poor guy hasn't gotten in a rover since.

-If you forget a ladder on your module like I tend to do, no worries. You can just jump or jetpack up to it very easily.

Edit: What he said ^ lol, I must have been sitting on the reply screen when that post came up.

Edited December 31, 2013 by Duke23

[BlackBicycle]

With my Minmus mission, I was actually planning to just orbit the thing, but then I realised I could just land and take off without barely a dent in my return fuel supply... so I did. Netted me so much science (on the level that I was ATM), my next expedition to Mun was a breeze : )

[ThatKerbal]

Thanks for the replies!

So as Keramane Said, I shoulden't like use my thrusters like i did on the mun to cushion the fall a little and just drop? with no thrusters? Won't that break my lander?

[BlackBicycle]

Well, you DO of course slow down before you land, it will just be much shorter/weaker burn. It's all easier out there on Minmus : )

[Sirine]

Why don't you try it out 1st, before you ask?

[ThatKerbal]

Okay, Thanks that eases some of the stress on this mission!

Thank you all for the replies. I'll put this as answered, Keep replying if you think i should know more.

[pigletx2]

If you want a colony, make sure you can dock if you play stock, or get Mechanical Jebadiah 2(aka MechJeb 2) to do it for you if you don't and you can't dock. Also, make sure you can land close to the main structure(which must be on one of those big flat lakes or your DOOMED), or, again, use MechJeb 2 to land for you(which I don't suggest, it takes the fun out of building bases). Last, make the parts into slow, big rovers so you can dock the whole thing together so you don't clutter up the Tracking Station.

Your going to want a station in LKO(100k), and one orbiting Minmus, along with a good sized hauler which can transport stuff from LKO station to Minmus station, a good 20-60 ton launcher, and a Minmus OTS hauler (OTS= Orbit to surface, basically a lander which lands stuff other than it on the ground [said stuff needs landing legs or the huge rover wheels, or you will need to go SLLOOOOWW]).

Get the orbital hauler to LKO station, and the OTS hauler to Minmus station. Now, launch the first base part to LKO station, get it to Minmus station, land it, and send the OTS hauler back up. Refuel it, and send in the next part. Do what you did for the first part again,make sure both are not on the landing legs, and rover part B to part A, And hope you can dock them together. And congratulations, you just do that a bunch of times, and you got a base. I suggest KAS to attach base parts together.

[Mr.Rocket]

I second using KAS, and if you are even somewhat okay at precision landing, aim for the huge ice lakes for an ideal base location. They are perfectly sea level, allowing you to use the altimeter, and are completely flat, which is somewhat helpful in that low of gravity.