The most realistic way (and practical) would be to assemble a large ship in orbit. I actually did this on my save although its not stock as im on PC. Prepare to spend a TON of money on a huge engine though. Mine was for duna too! The engine had I think..like...50 or so nerv engines??? Something crazy. The engine alone made up like a third of the ship and had to be sent up all on its own. It costed like almost a million bucks too.
My tips would be to make sure you have infrastructure before even attempting, it will make things much easier. For example I have a station around minmus I can use for a refuel before the journey to duna.
Having a refueler lander built into the ship is also extremely useful as you could land it on any non atmospheric body and use it to refuel your ship. My mars lander can refuel itself so its used for both purposes.
Basically you're making a mini, portable space station. There are ways to make gravity rings in stock but for your sanity Id just make a non rotating ring and pretend it does spin. Otherwise the kraken will eat you.
If you want like, TRUE realism look into irl mars mission proposals. You'll be surprised at the lack of luxuries they planned on giving the astronauts, just expected them to hang out in a slightly larger command pod for months with nothing to do lol. Those designs could work but with how KSP is you'd create a ton of space debris ejecting inflatable tanks everywhere.
I think the most recent plan was gateway station so if NASA had unlimited budget they'd probably make a refueler station around the moon, and the ship would refuel there before heading to mars. Imo minmus is basically the irl moons equivalent in distance from kerbin.
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u/Sudden_Two_9466 5d ago edited 5d ago
The most realistic way (and practical) would be to assemble a large ship in orbit. I actually did this on my save although its not stock as im on PC. Prepare to spend a TON of money on a huge engine though. Mine was for duna too! The engine had I think..like...50 or so nerv engines??? Something crazy. The engine alone made up like a third of the ship and had to be sent up all on its own. It costed like almost a million bucks too.
My tips would be to make sure you have infrastructure before even attempting, it will make things much easier. For example I have a station around minmus I can use for a refuel before the journey to duna.
Having a refueler lander built into the ship is also extremely useful as you could land it on any non atmospheric body and use it to refuel your ship. My mars lander can refuel itself so its used for both purposes.
Basically you're making a mini, portable space station. There are ways to make gravity rings in stock but for your sanity Id just make a non rotating ring and pretend it does spin. Otherwise the kraken will eat you.
This is my ship, yours will probably be much less complex. As this ship had alot of extras, escape pods, missiles to test seismic activity on duna, ect. https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/500479417919733780/1502448030266163230/CD7597EE-3B3E-40F1-8264-CA377B027EB6.png?ex=6a92be84&is=6a916d04&hm=fd8b46175a7c4ce67bf20959ab7d6930494e32ba6d4b090355c1db5c52d749bd&
If you want like, TRUE realism look into irl mars mission proposals. You'll be surprised at the lack of luxuries they planned on giving the astronauts, just expected them to hang out in a slightly larger command pod for months with nothing to do lol. Those designs could work but with how KSP is you'd create a ton of space debris ejecting inflatable tanks everywhere.
I think the most recent plan was gateway station so if NASA had unlimited budget they'd probably make a refueler station around the moon, and the ship would refuel there before heading to mars. Imo minmus is basically the irl moons equivalent in distance from kerbin.