How long should a trip to Minmus and back take?

[Roadkill]

After tapping most of the science on Kerbin and Mun I decided to take a shot at landing on Minmus. I tend to overengineer things slightly (I like to have a little extra fuel just in case), so I figured the ship that took me to the Mun should also land me on Minmus.

I launch from Kerbin, slingshot myself around the Mun to increase my orbit of Kerbin without using a ton of fuel, then carefully set myself on a course for Minmus. After landing, I collect my science and return directly to Kerbin.

The whole trip took 77 days and 1 hour. I figure I probably took a lot longer than I should, so what's the usual trip time?

[TaterShovel]

My round-trip excursions to Minmus usually take 19-20 days.

[IronSides]

Also the fuel you would use for a direct trip to Minmus is not much more than for the Mun.

Once in Minmus SOI you save much more fuel than you would landing on the Mun, not to mention you can use VERY small engines to land and takeback off.

I believe the overall fuel useage is much less than a Mun trip, many player go to minmus first.

If you take off at the right time and angle you can even save having to match minmus inclination which saves you about 240 m/s of delta-v.

[Captain Tenneal]

I love going to minmus first its very easy to do with the first tier or two of the tech tree. Minmus' gravity is very small making exploring with just the backpack thrusters extreamly easy. I like to land on the edge of a mountain and get all the science I can there then the slope of the mountain is a different biome then the lake bed. It doesn't take long at all and I can travel a few km easily without running out of thruster feul. I can get like 600 science from each mission which is huge early game.

[raydioactive]

it probably took longer because of the slingshot

[Aragosnat]

Depends on how much fuel you are willing to burn to get there and back. I have gotten to it in 2 to 3 days. And then 5-6 days without doing major burns towards Kerbin. But, my normal takes 8-9 days to get there and orbit/land with the 5-6 days to get back. 13-15 days is not bad for round trip. Remember you can always burn towrads Kerbin after leaving Minmus SOI.

[RossDBrown]

If your ship took you to the Mun and back then it should be fine for Minmus without worrying about doing a slingshot around the Mun - although that's a pretty cool way to get there.

In my experience, my Mun-landers are capable of launching, matching Minmus, intercepting, landing and returning with roughly the same fuel consumption.

[MAD]

18 day Hohmann (9 there, 9 back)
less if you dont care about fuel conservation

LKO to Minmus orbit 918.1m/s and -159.5m/s for 100km circular capture
Easier to get to than the Mun

[Roadkill]

2nd trip only took 25 days. Suppose I'll get better with time. Still, beats 77 days.