mun base - serious applications ?

[Psykikk]

hey there..

I am considering putting up a base of some sort.

I wondered if a mun base does have any usefull applications except for "been there, done that" stuff.

I use the kethane mod so being able to refuel is nice and all, but does a stop at mun help in getting to objects / plantes further away even help at all ?

thx in advance

[Geschosskopf]

Apart from role-playing, surface Mun bases are pretty useless IMHO. If you want to refuel interplanetary ships via kethane, do it at Minmus instead because you burn much less fuel getting the kethane into orbit. But personally, I don't think all this is worth the trouble. And pillaging all the Mun biomes for their science is best done from a space station.

But role-playing is fun. You could, for example, set up a main spaceport/base camp on an equatorial kethane field and have numerous other bases scattered about, like at several anomalies (either space tourism or doing imaginary Science!). Then you'd need little hoppers to shuttle Kerbals around between these bases, which you'd refuel either at the base camp or at the remote locations, depending on kethane distribution.

[MalfunctionM1Ke]

Actually there is, Psykikk.

Build a rover with Materials Bays and Goo Canisters that drives from Biome to Biome and that has the data processed in the Mun-Base which than sends the data back or puts it in a Return-Vehicle to Kerbin

[BudgetHedgehog]

Someone did the math and for refuelling purposes, refuelling orbiting Minmus and burning from there is a more efficient way than getting to Eve and Duna. Burning from Minmus orbit to LKO then onwards is more efficient for getting to planets further away, thanks to the increased Oberth effect (takes about 200m/s to burn for LKO, but you're travelling at about 3km/s by the time you get there, as compared to 2.2km/s).

But along with that, setting up camp on the Mun and everything is less efficient than all of that. So you're better off using it for refuelling and resetting ground hoppers/rovers for catching all the Science! in all the biomes.