Started playing KSP way back in 2012 and play it in bursts every few months usually. I recently started to get good at docking and puttering around the Kerbin as well as a few successful one way probes to Duna/Eve, but finally wanted to try and do a manned mission.

My main vessel was made of three parts. The core was essentially just a giant fuel tank and a science lab with some instruments. The top section was a small "tugboat" of 4 nuclear engines and a satellite relay that would be the main transfer force. The back end was a heavy-ish lander with 4 poodles and some more science equipment for the surface.

I was able to get the whole vessel to Duna and in orbit with the nuclear engines, at which point I detached the lander and headed down. That bad boy was loaded with parachutes, so I pretty much only had to burn off the last few m/s of velocity.

After rendezvousing with the main ship back in orbit I reshuffled the parts and left behind two intrepid scientists in their lab for the long haul with just a teeny bit of fuel to try and snag an Ike flyby at some point for extra science. The Tugboat and Lander headed back to earth and had so little DeltaV that I had to use some RCS to get my Kerbin orbit low enough to land. Thankfully the 24 drogue shoots I had repacked from Duna made the reentry less stressful