Maglevs and Waveriders

Interested in going to the Moon? A few tens of millions of dollars should buy you a ticket. A few more tens of millions will be enough to build you a not-very-comfortable home for a short vacation in the extreme heat, extreme cold, and totally airless environment of the Moon.

While solar-powered lightships can get you from Earth orbit to orbit around the Moon, they can't get you into Earth orbit. They also can't get you down to the lunar surface.

It's the huge gravity well of Earth and the lesser one of the Moon that will keep people from long stays on the Moon. Rockets are expensive; most of the weight of a launch goes into fuel and boosters that are completely used up. Payloads are small and the dollar-per-pound cost is enormous.

Kevin and Artie are two engineers who have an idea for creating a much cheaper approach to beating the gravity wells. They've already built the first solar powered lightships that take cargo from Earth orbit to lunar orbit. Their target is to bring costs down enough to make visits to the Moon much cheaper, affordable for the common man. Eventually, they want the Moon to be a second permanent home for humanity.