Duna project

[montyben101]

So im thinking of going to Duna in my current save sometime soon. I will use a few space shuttle launches to build something like NASAs idea and then send it off along with a second vehicle with extra supplies like life support fuel and possibly more space for the crew. Once at Duna the lander on the first ship (with the crew) will land do stuff on the surface and dock to the same ship. The crew will then get into the ship decouple the lander and the second ship will dock to the first to bring them back home. All in all it will probably take about 10 shuttle missions to build both ships. The lander might be launched with my Ariane 5 as it is probably to bulky for the shuttles cargo bay.

I have done it many many times before and know perfectly how to do it, my problem is is that I use TAC life support so I don't know how much life support to pack, how often I will need to resupply my ISS ect ect.

Basically how long will it take to get to Duna?

(I will probably turn this into a log type thing like my ISS project)

[waterlubber]

monty, that depends. If you have a mod like MechJeb (very useful for automatically planning burns, saves a TON of time as I go interplanetary a LOT on my career save) or a mod, which may be useful for you, like Transfer Window Planner.

Here is an image, which I will describe how long it will take:

This is a transfer from Kerbin->Duna.

Color shows how much DeltaV is needed. The y axis (up and down) shows how many days of life support you will need. You can get there in 151 days, however, it will require enormous DeltaV. The x axis (left and right) shows how long until you LAUNCH. This doesn't matter unless you have contracts with time issues, a time cap, or other kerbals using life support. If you look at the transfer, you can see that you can get enough life support for about 151 days (I'd pack 350 for round trip, possibly more). Additionally, you can see that even if you went with the minimum of 151 days you would still need about 2000 DeltaV, or 4k round trip not including landing, capture, etc. However, you should find a balance between life support needed and DeltaV and time constraints.

[Kurtvw]

As waterlubber showed above, 200 to 250 days is common outbound, expect to spend between 300 and 450 days at duna waiting for a return window. Figure 280ish for the trip home.

Never forget the long wait for the return window (unless you have an unholy overload of DeltaV available). The outbound burn can be as low as 1000ish Dv if your luck is good, but that commonly translates to a more expensive capture on the other end. And tools like Transfer Window Planner (shown above) are very helpful. I plan for 2000 outbound (gives lots of wiggle room in my departure and returns), and 1300ish return (direct to re-entry - if you want to rendezvous a station in orbit at Kerbin on the way home you'll need more since you won't get to aerobrake as aggressively.

Figure 1000ish days minimum total food required. All of the other TAC lifesupport items can be reused in flight or created, (which is actually why I don't use it anymore - ultimately I didn't think it added much challenge).

Anyhow, have fun!

[montyben101]

Hmm.... thats rather more than i imagined...