Description

Space travel is not easy. Conventional fuels in rockets force an unrealistic tradeoff- long trip times with just enough fuel to put a spacecraft into a long, unpowered glide, or so much fuel for a fast trip that there is no room for payload. Fusion power would be great but it’s still not ready for prime time.
There’s a lot of energy in space however, in the form of sunlight. Collect that sunlight and convert it into electricity to power a plasma engine. Then space travel might be quite a bit faster and quite a bit cheaper.
A bored PhD student and a billionaire with time and money on his hands come together to build the first Solar Sailer, a spaceship powered by sunlight. It’s faster than a conventional rocket, cheaper to operate, and can maneuver in space, something rockets can only do sparingly. The student does the engineering, the billionaire tackles interplanetary politics, and their ship makes it possible for mankind to build a home on the Moon.
In a bonus story titled ‘The Old Man’, Bob and his best friend are two hundred fifty years old, beneficiaries of the earliest longevity treatments and survivors of the Cyclone Decades and the global warming that nearly wiped out humanity. The bad times are almost over, though, and most of the excitement is gone. Life is getting boring and there is a minor problem with the longevity they have been given. Bob’s best friend is thinking of ending it all. Can Bob save his friend, and perhaps himself as well?