how to get there

What every fictional character should know: advice on various ways of getting out and about in the Old Solar System.

get super-rich and hire all the brains you need

"...Now as to how I'm going to get to the Moon, that's a silly question. There's not a man in here who can cope with anything more complicated in the way of machinery than a knife and fork. You can't tell a left-handed monkey-wrench from a reaction engine, yet you ask me for blue-prints of a space-ship.
"Well, I'll tell you how I'll get to the Moon. I'll hire the proper brain-boys, give them everything they want, see to it that they have all the money they can use, sweet talk them into long hours - then stand back and watch them produce..."

Robert A Heinlein, The Man Who Sold the Moon (1950)

Stid: That's all very well, Zendexor, but not all of us are quite so well-heeled as Elon - I mean Delos D - Harriman. We need a different way forward for those of us in a state of comparative pecuniary depletion.

Zendexor: Coming up...

fiddle around with gravity

"...my theory of Uranus as a habitable planet was derided. I decided that I could prove the thing to the world in just one way, by reaching Uranus and bringing back incontrovertible proofs. The thing became a mania with me, and in the past two years I've worked unceasingly on it, trying to find a way to span the gulf of more than a billion miles that lies between our world and Uranus.
"I found the way, Devlin. I discovered a method of bending the lines of gravitational force, making it possible for me to concentrate momentarily all the tremendous attractive power of any planet upon a single point or object. You see what that meant? It meant that I could build a strong steel air-tight chamber like a diving-bell, here on earth, and by means of the mechanism inside it could concentrate on that bell for a moment all the terrific attractive power of Uranus!
"The bell and all in it would instantly be torn loose from earth's hold and jerked across the gulf of space with unthinkable speed to Uranus! Just before reaching it the mechanism would automatically reverse to make it land gently..."

Edmond Hamilton, The Terror Planet (Weird Tales, May 1932)

Or try this one:

"I begin to see," I said slowly. "And you could get in and screw yourself up while the Cavorite was warm, and as soon as it cooled it would become impervious to gravitation, and off you would fly - "
"At a tangent."
"You would go off in a straight line - " I stopped abruptly. "What is to prevent the thing travelling in a straight line into space for ever?" I asked. "You're not safe to get anywhere, and if you do - how will you get back?"
"I've thought of that," said Cavor. "That's what I meant when I said the thing is finished. The inner glass sphere can be air-tight, and, except for the manhole, continuous, and the steel sphere can be made in sections, each section capable of rolling up after the fashion of a roller blind..."

H G Wells, The First Men in the Moon (1901)

Stid: I again have to point out a similar drawback, Zendexor. In the two examples you've just given, success depends on your being, or being acquainted with, a scientific genius, just as the Heinlein example depends on the availability of a financial wizard. How the heck are more ordinary blokes supposed to achieve lift-off?

Zendexor: I sympathise, it's hard for those without talent. You're understandably anxious to obtain a method with less demanding criteria. Well then, relax: I've got one that ought to suit you, one which requires no brains at all:

get kidnapped

...The decapods were on them; one about to enter the ship. And not empty-handed either. In one arm was a wildly kicking horse, in whose tilted saddle a police officer clung, in another a small girl of about six, who, in turn, clasped a mewing kitten to her breast. An ashen-faced negro was caught in a third coiled arm, while in the fourth, a belligerent, red-faced matron dressed in neat serge and wearing a stiff sailor hat, pummeled the monster with a tightly rolled umbrella. Other beasts following the first were also loaded down with captives, men, women, youths; white and black, without discrimination. There was even a wire-haired terrier...

Leslie Frances Stone, The Human Pets of Mars (Amazing Stories, October 1936)

In other circumstances you may need to "meet the aliens half way". That's to say, it may happen that a certain degree of co-operation is needed on the part of the victim in order to ensure that the kidnapping is successful. For example, you might need to be stupid enough to walk into an alien spacecraft that has invitingly landed and opened its ramp for you to enter:

...all hastened in great excitement and gathered before the steps.
Contrary to their not unnatural expectations, no one emerged from the vessel... and the silence and solitude and mechanical adroitness of it all were uncanny...
The open portal and stairs offered an obvious invitation; and after some hesitancy, the scientists made up their minds to enter. Some were still fearful of a trap; but all the others were more powerfully drawn by curiosity and investigative ardor; and one by one they climbed the stairs and filed into the vessel...

Clark Ashton Smith, Seedling of Mars (Wonder Stories Quarterly, Fall 1931, as "The Planet Entity")

Of course there are liable to be some downsides to being an interplanetary kidnap victim. Despite the opportunities for travel, the motivation of the alien kidnapper is unlikely to accord with one's own interests.
Ideally, then, one ought to be benevolently kidnapped.

Stid: That sounds like quite a trick to pull. Such interference with my liberty is something I'd resent even if the intentions were good.

Zendexor: It can still turn out all right, provided that the following condition is fulfilled: namely, that while the agents who grab you are malevolent, the deed was done at the behest of beings who did not foresee those agents' lack of scruple, nor their misunderstanding of what had been meant as a free invitation.

"...This busybody... will not be missed for months, and even then no one will know where he was when he disappeared. He came alone. He left no address. He has no family. And finally he has poked his nose into the whole affair of his own accord."
"Well, I confess I don't like it. He is, after all, human... Still, he's only an individual, and probably a quite useless one. We're risking our own lives, too. In a great cause - "
"For the Lord's sake don't start all that stuff now. We haven't time."
"I dare say," replied Weston, "he would consent if he could be made to understand."
"Take his feet and I'll take his head," said Devine.
"If you really think he's coming round," said Weston, "you'd better give him another dose. We can't start till we get the sunlight. It wouldn't be pleasant to have him struggling in there for three hours or so..."

C S Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet (1938)

Stid: It's a good method as far as it goes but still I foresee difficulties. For instance - suppose the supply of mad scientists is not sufficiently plentiful in your area? And even if there are some, suppose they haven't got round to inventing a clandestine means of space travel? It could quite easily happen that way. You simply can't rely on mad scientists to produce the needful. What we want is a method which makes use not of money, nor of advances in physics, nor of convenient villains, but of total self-reliance. The means of Getting There From Here must spring from one's own status as the hero of the adventure. Really, nothing else will do.

Zendexor: You don't ask for much, do you, Stid? Oh well, this latest stipulation means I have no choice but to refer you to the ultimate authority.

the power of wishful thinking

...I turned my gaze from the landscape to the heavens where the myriad stars formed a gorgeous and fitting canopy for the wonders of the earthly scene. My attention was quickly riveted by a large red star close to the distant horizon. As I gazed upon it I felt a spell of overpowering fascination - it was Mars, the god of war, and for me, the fighting man, it had always held the power of irresistible enchantment. As I gazed at it on that far-gone night it seemed to call across the unthinkable void, to lure me to it, to draw me as the lodestone attracts a particle of iron.
My longing was beyond the power of opposition; I closed my eyes, stretched out my arms toward the god of my vocation and felt myself drawn with the suddenness of thought through the trackless immensity of space...

Thus John Carter in Edgar Rice Burroghs' A Princess of Mars (1912) tells us how he did it. And the process seems to have been self-validating, for he wasn't plagued by any kind of doubt. The following chapter begins:

I opened my eyes upon a strange and weird landscape. I knew that I was on Mars; not once did I question either my sanity or my wakefulness. I was not asleep, no need for pinching here; my inner consciousness told me as plainly that I was upon Mars as your conscious mind tells you that you are upon Earth. You do not question the fact; neither did I.

The ultimate in authorial GAWI...

Stid: Er - yes. I admit I was after examples of individual initiative, but the space-crossing power of ERB's John Carter is more akin to fantasy, though one can invent scientific-style explanations for it (any sufficiently advanced or extreme use of mind-power tends to straddle the sf/fantasy border). So let me make my demands clear: I require enterprises which depend upon qualities of get-up-and-go, that operate in the context of what is normally possible, given the existence of two essentials: [1] reasonably obtainable transportation within [2] a reasonably habitable Solar System. That covers it, I reckon.

Zendexor: In other words, transport that isn't just powered by wishful thinking. Very well. Let's go for -

privately-owned spaceships

"EVERYTHING'S going to turn out fine, Lois,” Jess Chandon had said to his young bride. “I’ve read up on Mercury, and it’s a swell place for a couple of people to make money ! Scientists have talked a lot about that world not being worth a darn — but I’ve got an idea !
  “Those mountains of Mercury, those blazing and almost airless deserts, those funny plants in the Twilight Belt, those cold stars of the night hemisphere ! There’s romance in all that stuff, darling! Everybody likes the glamour of far-off places, even though they can’t see them first-hand. That’s where we come in. We’re going to take pictures on Mercury — artistic pictures portraying the mood of that grim little planet — and we’re going to bring them back to Earth and sell them to syndicates !”
  Jess Chandon had been full of youthful enthusiasm. He was only twentytwo at the outset. And Lois, three years younger, had responded to his feelings with eager hope, behind which was a lust for adventure which was no less compelling than her husband’s. For Lois Parker Chandon was a tomboy at heart.
  “There’s competition, of course,” she had said. “I’ve seen Mercury -pictures before. But I didn’t think any of them were very good. We can do a lot better. I’m with you, Jess — all the way — even if it takes our last cent!”
  They’d bought a small and ancient spaceboat with the few thousand dollars they had between them. Once the ship had been named The Pegasus; long since it had lost much of the quality that had made that name appropriate. More appropriately they had rechristened it — Old Grouchy...

So begins Mercutian Adventure by Raymond Z Gallun (Astounding Stories, February 1938). You couldn't ask for a better example of the type of ramshackle set-up which underpins a society in which adventure can be had for the asking. And it's not just the fact that you can get a battered old spaceship for a few thousand dollars! It's also the fact that the available destinations haven't all already been overrun by other folk with the same idea.

Stid: I was wondering about that. How come they haven't been overrun?

Zendexor: It may seem a bit of a mystery, but look at it this way: the Solar System is a big place and it takes time to explore it all. Perhaps the likes of Lois and Jess are living their lives in a span of a few decades during which the ramshackle approach to discovery is the main theme. I think we could allow that as plausible.
The reward for accepting it is certainly immense: a wonderful crop of tales in which ordinary folk like you and me can save up to travel to other worlds and run into story-theme-stuff that hasn't already been done to death.
What I call the ramshackle approach, incidentally, applies not only to the means and manner of commitment but also to the choice of destination. It can get really whimsical, chancy and contingent.

Mars would undoubtedly have been our destination—had it not been for a circumstance beyond our control.
The reader will recall how, in the spring of 1930, the scientific world was shaken by the announcement of the discovery of a trans-Neptunian planet, to which the name of Pluto was given. It was our misfortune that this announcement came at the very time when we were preparing for our flight; at a time, indeed, when our destination had been only tentatively chosen. And the effect upon Stark was overwhelming...

And so, instead of aiming at Mars, the heroes of Stanton A Coblentz' Into Plutonian Depths (Wonder Stories Quarterly, Spring 1931) decide to head for Pluto... on what's really a whim! Almost like tossing a coin to see which planet you'll aim for!