A Synopsis of Broken Ties

The story starts with the lead character, an old man, looking back and writing the official history of adventures that started when he was a young man.

His story begins sometime in the first decade of the 2000 millennium. A number of Senators have joined forces to do something about the national debt. They've given up on being able to reduce expenditures. Since the outflow can't be reduced they are searching for new sources of cash to feed the money monster.

The amounts needed to satisfy the debt are staggering. No usual course of action will do.
They quickly decide that the only reasonable chance for success is to search for valuable minerals on other nearby planets or moons. Nothing else could hope to generate the huge dollar amounts required.

Thirteen engineers and scientists join forces to be the pioneers to set up this remote colony. Their troubles start almost as soon as they leave the surface of earth. They nearly perish trying to set up their first base of operations. The story uses no pseudo-science. Everything that is proposed and accomplished is do-able and within the reach of modern science and the understanding of an average reader.

The pioneers don't discover the wealth they hoped for but do find many more problems than they are prepared to cope with. Nevertheless, in time the colony becomes prosperous and eventually this prosperity brings them their greatest problem--one which seriously threatens their existence.

Almost from the moment they land there is a noticeable drift in their relationships with each other and with earth. They discovered that life on the moon did not follow the carefully laid plans they made before leaving the earth. This causes many problems--some of them fatal. Nevertheless some of the group manages to hide an ace up their sleeve and they are eventually successful in re-establishing cordial relations with earth, in general, and the United States, in particular. Their venture ends differently than planned but everyone lives happily ever after. Nearly everyone. Well, some.