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)

"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.

...TO BE CONTINUED