In my quest to luck myself onto the Mun, I have finally succeeded! I didn’t leave myself enough fuel to get back, that will be some other Kerbal’s duty! Now to reap the rewards while I wait… SONOFA@!#@!$!!! I FORGOT THE ANTENNA!
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Getting to the Mun is a huge milestone when playing KSP 
. Getting the little guys back in one piece is a whole other problem. The good news is that it takes a lot more ∆V to get to the Mun than it does to get back to Kerbin.
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Good job! That’s a big achievement! @PaulRix is right that it doesn’t take much delta v to get back. I thought about 500 or so if you are facing the way the moon came from in its orbit.
Thanks, after reverting back to launch and adding a comm device… I did manage to make it back again, well after stranding one in orbit around the Mun (i’ll deal with him later 
)
So far I have avoided doing any math. I hope to keep it that way, just doing the science only career, so no need to worry about cost. Which is good cause well, i’d be broke otherwise.
There’s two mods out there. Kerbal engineer and MechJeb. Both of these can handle any Δv calculations for you. I run both at the same time as KE provides a lot of detailed info about your ship. From exact AoA to heat flux. MJ is great for working out things relative between you and objects in space. It even has some autopilot features. Although it’s almost so good that you’d think the thing you built got FBW. Cool stuff is that in careers you need to unlock functions for them. Although I prefer to do my mun/minmus intercepts manually 
Interplanetary intercepts? Mechjeb please… I wonder if someone around here actually ever did their own interplanetary intercept calculations?
I had looked at them, just been holding off doing things stock for now. Gonna try and get a mobile lab up to my now 2 stranded kerbals. well 3 if you count the one i left in orbit…oops.
Congratulations and good luck for your further adventures!
Don’t be sad that you couldn’t make it back, it is for the best. Your rocket would never have survived reentry as far as I can tell.
Nice design btw, I am pretty surprised how small your rocket is, most beginners start with HUGE overpowered rockets to get to Mun (I certainly did, my first Mun rocket had enough DeltaV to reach Duna, and my lander was ridiculously huge to have LOADS of fuel. Still tipped it over on Mun and had to rescue my Kerbals with an even bigger one…)
Kerbal Engineer Redux is one of the mods I really could not enjoy KSP without.
Even in my “unmodded” saves (which rarely exist I admit) I have two or three mods installed that just should be stock. KER is one of them, and so is KAC (Kerbal Alarm Clock). Otherwise you have SO much guesswork or manual math to get almost anywhere.
No there was really no provisions for a return built into it, which is why there are no parachutes on it either
Well here is the 2nd mission. The first stage is woefully inefficient and oddly always drifts to the north no matter which way I turn the thing. Limiting the thrust just leads to flips, so probably just need to reduce the fuel in the boosters so I can starting turning earlier and get a much better starting orbit. With a little tuning I probably should be able to reach Minimus. Well if anyone notices anything let me know, it is the science career mode, so I don’t have everything unlocked.
Mudcat, one thing I noticed from your video is that you could save lot of Delta V by being more efficient with your launch, initial orbit and then the transfer burn.
I usually launch into a parking orbit around Kerbin at 100km. As you launch, keep an eye on the Apoapsis. When it hits 100km, stop burning until you are nearly at that point. Then burn Pro-grade to push out the periapsis to 100km, which will give you a nice circular orbit. You can then plan your trans-lunar injection burn. This should only need a pro-grade burn of about 800 mps (800 Delta V).
Minmus is actually easier to land on and return from than the Mun because it is a smaller body with less gravity. I usually go to Minmus first to get as much science as possible (and unlock more powerful parts) before tackling the Mun.
@PaulRix: Funny, while I know that Minmus is really easier, it never occurred to me that I could do that. Mun is just the natural thing to aim for.
@Mudcat: You are going very fast at a low altitude with a rocket that is not quite ideal in terms of aerodynamic drag.
I would recommend using liquid fuel engines instead of those enormous SRBs, with thrust vectoring engines if you have those. If you don’t: use fins to stabilize and/or steer. That will help with the tipping.
And as PaulRix said: You should do your gravity turn a bit earlier, and have your parking orbit a bit lower.
Your descent looks pretty good already! Your choice of landing spot was… bold.
Yeah, I would like to turn a bit earlier as well, those boosters are over-kill, through trial and error found out that even touching the controls while they were on just lead to trouble. I need to rework that bit, since in that configuration, turning earlier, isn’t possible. There were many many failed attempts before I just said, heck with it and let it’s just do what it wanted to do.
Time for some tinkering!
by pressing capslock you’ll set your controls to fine-controls. You can check this on the bottom left. Your control indications change from brown-red to light blue.
how did I not know that after all this time… lol. Well now I’m embarrassed.
General question for anyone, is it possible to attach something to 2 decouplers at once. Seems I can only attach them to one, but I might just be slightly off in my placements.
Not to my knowledge. You could use strut connectors to reinforce part of your ship if you are suffering structural instabilities. If instead you are trying to get clean seperations and not induce rotation on jettisoned parts wich then proceed to smack into the rest of your ship I recommend using very small Sepratron rocket boosters. Don’t forget you can click them and fine tune the amount of fuel they carry and the amount of force they induce.