What Has the Forum Population Accomplished: Manned Return Missions

[Pecan]

You will :-)

[Red Iron Crown]

Never made it further out than Minmus before. I would have no idea what I'm even doing attempting to go to another planet.

We all felt like that when first trying interplanetary. Make an unmanned probe with lots of dV, send it out of Kerbin's SOI and play with the orbits.

[PaladinFoster]

I'll give it a shot.

[Red Iron Crown]

If you want to just dabble a little, you could practice efficient transfers from Minmus to the Mun and vice versa. It's the same problem as interplanetary transfer, just on a smaller scale.

[PaladinFoster]

Wow thanks, I never thought that would be even remotely similar.

[Pecan]

At the risk of derailing the thread:

You're always orbiting something and so are the planets and moons.

In Kerbin-system you, Mun and Minmus are orbiting Kerbin. This is similar to the planets (including Kerbin) orbiting the sun.

So going between Mun <-> Minmus is like going from one planet (including Kerbin) to another.

When you escape Kerbin's SOI you are still in orbit around the sun.

So transfering to a planet is like transfering to Mun/Minmus from Kerbin.

alexmoon.github.io/ksp/ will tell you when the planets are aligned so you can make the transfer, just as you need to go at the right time/direction to get to Mun from Kerbin.

This is known as the 'transfer window'.

[Skorpychan]

Duna. Why?

- The original mission didn't have enough fuel to get home, so I had to send more.

- I forgot to quicksave, and quickloading on a routine Mun landing meant I had to redo the Duna ascent.

- The refueling mission barely had any fuel left after orbital corrections, due to delivering a science station.

- The station and space tug then slammed into Ike because orbital mechanics.

- Reloading that, I had to use up more fuel adjusting the orbit because of that damned Mun.

- Mission #3 delivered another kerbed lander and a Kethane miner.

- In a retrograde orbit, rather than prograde. So, a lot of fuel was burned using Ike as an anchor to make a U-turn.

- I forgot to attach a dedicated refinery, however, so the system's running off the miner's small refinery.

- I bought a new computer, and had to move the save.

- The kethane miner has a narrow margin, and there's not a lot of Kethane deposits ON Ike that are on equatorial regions. But the tanks are filling up, albeit slowly.

It's a learning experience. If I make all these mistakes around Duna, then I can deal with them before making my big, ambitious mission to Jool. THAT is going to be ridiculously hard, because of the sheer amount of things I'll have to redesign.

[ArmchairGravy]

I weigh manned returns versus the pain of doing them. Mun, Minmus, Duna and Ike, Gilly, Dres, Layethe and Val I can do without undue injury to my sense of fun. Everything else gets a probe.

[Redshift OTF]

Eve definitely the hardest for me. Tylo is not that hard as long as you make a very efficient lander and then everything around it will be that much smaller and lighter. Tylo is more of a piloting challenge as you need to use the right amounts of thrust so you don't either waste loads of fuel on the descent or crash into the surface.

This lander will land you on Tylo and return you to orbit although it will have to be picked up by the return stage. The good thing with Tylo is there is no atmosphere so getting back into orbit is easy by setting a very shallow launch trajectory.

Eeloo is not that hard if you have the DeltaV as the lander can be pretty light to cope with Eeloos low gravity. Moho is hard as I would say it is a challenge that requires good building skills and good piloting skills. It is one of the missions that can you can get so easily wrong even if you have built the right ship. Eve is obviously the hardest and needs total efficiency to even make something that can practically complete the mission.

[lajoswinkler]

Kerbol? As with circularizing 5 km above, and then returning? That should be the hardest thing in the game, way more than returning from Eve.

Also, returning from Moho and Eeloo is less harder than returning from Tylo. Delta v requirements are like 2x of Moho land+return.

Edited July 6, 2014 by lajoswinkler

[SargeRho]

Eve's surface for sure. I've only done one manned landing on Eve so far, and had to send the ascent vehicle down before the crew arrived, and it was in the course of a grand journey missions to all planets and moons.

[Javster]

I actually did Kerbol but voted wrongly in the poll. Isn't Mun harder than Minmus too?

[NERVAfan]

I actually do find Minmus harder than Mun since it's easy to see when the Mun rises above the horizon, a lot harder for Minmus. Also because both times I went to Minmus I landed on crazy steep slopes.

[The Jedi Master]

I've never returned from any place farther than Minmus, though I probably could if I set my mind to it. Still an improvement on what I used to do--back in my early days, all my missions were one-way trips.

[AlexinTokyo]

I like Minmus; it's so forgiving. Seriously, with a half-decent ship you can screw up your insertion, deorbit, landing approach and landing, and still get away with it.

Mun, on the other hand, is a lumpy, evil b@$tard that eats landers.

[Tripzter]

Not sure why moho and eelooare together. Eeloo was a piece of cake. Moho took 3 landers to get my kerbal back.

[theend3r]

Not sure why moho and eelooare together. Eeloo was a piece of cake. Moho took 3 landers to get my kerbal back.

10 choice limit and they were similar for me. With the help of kraken I even made a reliable Moho SSTO with no refuelling.

[magnemoe]

Not sure why moho and eelooare together. Eeloo was a piece of cake. Moho took 3 landers to get my kerbal back.

Yes eeloo is far easier but both reqire the same skills: intercept an planet with small soi and brake into orbit.