What Has the Forum Population Accomplished: Manned Return Missions

[theend3r]

After reading this thread about the number of people who have successfully returned from Mun, I became curious about the overall accomplishments of the KSP players here and decided to post a pool.

There's nothing wrong with not even leaving Kerbin (if I remember right Whackjob said he doesn't like leaving Kerbin's SOI, could be wrong though, my memory is horrible ), so don't be shy and answer truthfully

Btw this isn't a thread about your best accomplishments like doing a tour of the whole system with FAR, DRE, RSS, life support, ion engine only while planting a flag on Jool all in ten days. It's only about the places you've been to.

EDIT: How does one edit pools? Should've been Eve, not Ever of of course. I also don't know why I put from in that place

Edited July 4, 2014 by theend3r

[Caelib]

Yeah, don't expect that Tylo one to get very many, if any at all. It has been done, but it requires an insane amount of delta-V to get there, land, take off and return to Kerbin ... I don't have an exact number, but it has to be somewhere around 15,000 - 20,000. When you consider the logistics of getting 10k delta-V of fuel just to Jool's system in the first place, it's quite a payload with a lot of logistics to iron out.

Edited July 4, 2014 by Caelib

[SRV Ron]

Eve, with its higher gravity and denser atmosphere, will be easy to land on using parachutes, but requires a larger multistage rocket then you would have used to orbit Kerbal to return your Kerbal to Eve orbit. That mission requires a separate lander and support ships.

The only other mission more insane is a Jool landing mission to elevation zero and return to orbit. (There is no actual surface to land on there.)

[theend3r]

Yeah, don't expect that Tylo one to get very many, if any at all. It has been done, but it requires an insane amount of delta-V to get there, land, take off and return to Kerbin ... I don't have an exact number, but it has to be somewhere around 20,000.

I've done it and I found it easier than Eve. Especially since I play with EnvironmentalVisualEnhancements so you don't even see anything in that hellhole. Forced me to get Scansat.

To my question is there a way to edit pools? Tylo should really be second last and those typos...

[Red Iron Crown]

Yeah, don't expect that Tylo one to get very many, if any at all. It has been done, but it requires an insane amount of delta-V to get there, land, take off and return to Kerbin ... I don't have an exact number, but it has to be somewhere around 15,000 - 20,000. When you consider the logistics of getting 10k delta-V of fuel just to Jool's system in the first place, it's quite a payload with a lot of logistics to iron out.

A return lander for Tylo need only have about 6km/s. Not all that much harder than a Kerbin ascent. The trick is to leave your transfer stage/mothership in orbit.

[Random Tank]

I found Tylo easy, just spammed aerospikes on a 30t lander (it was actually my Laythe lander without the jets). I spose Eve was the hardest, but it wasn't that hard (yet again, aerospikes = win).

So yeah. Ever was hardest

[CarlosMaximus]

Minmus for me. Got a mission to Duna, but the Kraken ate the return module. They're still down there, luckily the remaining modules make a serviceable ground base, and a basic orbital.

EDIT: How does one edit pools? Should've been Eve, not Ever of of course. I also don't know why I put from in that place

[Ted]

Fixed your poll. Also, you could remove Kerbin and separate Moho and Eeloo. I doubt anyone does difficult return missions from Kerbin as that's pretty much always where you start.

[Dave Kerbin]

Putting Moho/Eeloo together kind of messes things up.

I would rate Eeloo as noticeably easier then Moho or Tylo. The only difficulty with Eeloo is that it is a small target to get an intercept with so you're fiddling with maneuver nodes (as the maneuver node editor is improved it gets easier).

Tylo vs Moho is hard to say. While Tylo does requre an extra step to reach it's not very hard. Tylo is basically brute force in terms of how much delta-v you need to carry. Moho requires more finese - it does require a good amount of delta-v, but if you are off even a little the delta-v costs skyrocket. I guess I would have to consider the ships required. A ship with enough delta-v for Tylo could do Moho even with mistakes, so I guess I'd have to rate Tylo as the harder one. That fits in well with the fact that Tylo is often not a very tempting target.

[theend3r]

Putting Moho/Eeloo together kind of messes things up.

I would rate Eeloo as noticeably easier then Moho or Tylo. The only difficulty with Eeloo is that it is a small target to get an intercept with so you're fiddling with maneuver nodes (as the maneuver node editor is improved it gets easier).

Tylo vs Moho is hard to say. While Tylo does requre an extra step to reach it's not very hard. Tylo is basically brute force in terms of how much delta-v you need to carry. Moho requires more finese - it does require a good amount of delta-v, but if you are off even a little the delta-v costs skyrocket. I guess I would have to consider the ships required. A ship with enough delta-v for Tylo could do Moho even with mistakes, so I guess I'd have to rate Tylo as the harder one. That fits in well with the fact that Tylo is often not a very tempting target.

There was a limit on how many pool options you can have so I put them together as from my experience they were similarly difficult. Then again I always overengineer and usually have about 20-30k dv

It doesn't really matter the pool could've been Kerbin's SOI, Duna, Further and Eve. I just wanted an aproximate estimate.

Fixed your poll. Also, you could remove Kerbin and separate Moho and Eeloo. I doubt anyone does difficult return missions from Kerbin as that's pretty much always where you start.

Kerbin means not even Mun/Minmus, as the thread in OP suggests there are people who haven't left Kerbin yet.

Edited July 4, 2014 by theend3r

[Concentric]

Kerbol return?

So, what, timewarping through Kerbol's "surface"? And if it's just SoI, then that's clearly an entirely different thing to all the other options...

Kerbol SoI is easier than Mun return, isn't it? Minmus could be considered the same way, I feel.

And what if you found Dres easier than Duna? Which would you answer then?

[Caelib]

Yeah, I agree with the separation of Moho and Eeloo because they are very different in terms of difficulty ... at least in my opinion.

[theend3r]

Kerbol return?

So, what, timewarping through Kerbol's "surface"? And if it's just SoI, then that's clearly an entirely different thing to all the other options...

Kerbol SoI is easier than Mun return, isn't it? Minmus could be considered the same way, I feel.

And what if you found Dres easier than Duna? Which would you answer then?

Yes, yes, the pool was made hastily and is a bit... imperfect. Anyway just vote something, Dres and Duna are pretty much the same thing. My aim was to prove or disprove this:

My guess is more than half the forum users make it to Mun and Minmus. However, Duna and beyond you will likely see a large drop-off.

[Speijker]

I've never send a manned mission to Eve, so no returns there.

A few brave Kerbals did set foot on Duna once, but their lander was just inches away from being able to make it back into orbit and rendez-vous with the return capsule, and sadly no-one remembered to pack the parachutes back up.

[GregE]

I've only been to Mun and Minmus so far, but I voted Mun. As returning from it is tougher than returning from Minmus, on account of the Mun's higher gravity.

[SlimeCrusher]

The longest place i've sended a kerbal was to Minmus as far as i remember, then it was all probes, so Minmus

[RogueMason]

Landed on and returned from the surface of Eve as part of my grand tour. While the grand tour itself has yet to be completed, it's almost certain that the ship will be returning home. For the record, I also landed on Tylo and returned to orbit on this mission... hell, I've only got Pol and Eeloo to go now until I'm heading back to Kerbin, so... yeah

[Epthelyn]

The hardest return mission for me was, by a long way, Tylo. I can do dV fine, that's just adding more and more parts and getting those parts into orbit around Kerbin. The problem with Tylo is that you need a stupid amount of dV AND a TWR capable of fighting against gravity. Taking off isn't as bad as landing; once you've landed and have a TWR > 1 then at least you'll be going up. Landing is hard, you accelerate downwards at a speed I never expected although I really should have. Landing efficiently is terrifying (i.e. constant low-altitude landing method thingy).

It's fair to say that it's a billion times easier with a probe, because probes aren't nearly as heavy as a single-kerbal pod.

Can't say anything about Eve. I've never even tried to return anything from the surface. It's on my to-do list of things that I should do sometime but keep putting off for no reason.

All the others I've achieved multiple times. Tylo was, and still is, by the far the hardest in my opinion.

[HafCoJoe]

You know, not all the bodies can be graded on a simple scale of easiest to hardest, like Duna versus Eeloo. I can easily land on Eeloo but I'm shy from leaving Duna. Not sure which to mark. I suggest a "select all places you've landed on" instead.

[Superfluous J]

I'm in the "Eve" camp, though I've amusingly not had a manned return from any Joolian moon.

But that's because I did Eve first so I could hit all 5 moons of Jool in one go in my currently ongoing

mission.

[Godot]

Not much with regards to manned return missions ... Kerbin, Mun, Minmus, Duna ...

most of my missions (i.e. all missions to other bodies) were either manned flybys (Eve) or unmanned flybys/landings

Edited July 4, 2014 by Godot

[magnemoe]

Putting Moho/Eeloo together kind of messes things up.

I would rate Eeloo as noticeably easier then Moho or Tylo. The only difficulty with Eeloo is that it is a small target to get an intercept with so you're fiddling with maneuver nodes (as the maneuver node editor is improved it gets easier).

Tylo vs Moho is hard to say. While Tylo does requre an extra step to reach it's not very hard. Tylo is basically brute force in terms of how much delta-v you need to carry. Moho requires more finese - it does require a good amount of delta-v, but if you are off even a little the delta-v costs skyrocket. I guess I would have to consider the ships required. A ship with enough delta-v for Tylo could do Moho even with mistakes, so I guess I'd have to rate Tylo as the harder one. That fits in well with the fact that Tylo is often not a very tempting target.

Tylo is very hard to land on, at last for me, things happen very fast and you need 7000 m/s and a good twr, you can start off with TWR below 1 but you want it far higher during touchdown.

In short Tylo is the only body I have not landed manual on, problem is touchdown here you have to be very accurate to keep below 10 m/s speed, yes you can decent slowly from hundreds of meter up however this eat fuel like mad.

Eeloo is easier than Mun, lower gravity and very flat. Moho is much like Dress and Val, higher gravity than Mun but still manageable.

Main problem with them is getting where and getting into orbit around then.

Eve is easy to land on but hard to get away from, this however is more of an building challenge than a pilot challenge and its plenty of crafts designs to choose from.

Common for them all is extensive asparagus staging, landing is best done with parachutes + some engine help during touchdown.

[SkyRender]

Really, I'd put Tylo as harder to return from than Eeloo; Eeloo just takes a long time to reach, and a relatively high dV. The gravity is so low, however, that you're unlikely to waste much dV in landing, nor are you forced to design your lander to be heavy-duty.

The only body I haven't really done a return mission from yet is the surface of Eve. Mostly because I never really got around to it. The last time I considered it, I discovered Kethane not long after, and that just put a damper on the whole thing.

[Robotengineer]

Does return mean land and return? Or orbit return?

[theend3r]

Does return mean land and return? Or orbit return?

Manned land and return.