Interested in going to the Moon?
A few tens of millions of dollars should do it.
Ten or twenty million will get you there. But wait, there’s no place to stay.
People and equipment for small stations can be transported via rockets, but even small habitats are unlikely to be sustainable. The cost of rocket trips from Earth into orbit and from orbit to the Moon are just too high. Even cargo costs millions to transport. More tens of millions will be required to give you a place to stay- for perhaps a few weeks.
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. Their target is to bring costs down enough to make the Moon a second permanent home for humanity.
Trips to Earth orbit have to be cheaper, but that’s only a start. They’ll need more ideas to make life on the Moon sustainable.