Wow, thanks for the awesome response. To narrow it down a bit, I was wondering about the feasibility of launch this type of thing out of basically "my backyard"

Wow, thanks for the awesome response. To narrow it down a bit, I was wondering about the feasibility of launch this type of thing out of basically "my backyard". So something like a launch loop would be out of the question, and so would mining asteroids. Basically, can someone outside of NASA or SpaceX land an object on the moon that takes, say less than 5-10 years to arrive. Does it take $10k, $100k, $1m, $100m, etc.? Just idle wondering. The thing I was thinking about at the same time was my college professor's electromagnets. They would run on the order of 9 Tesla and he claimed could launch a bolt at greater than escape velocity straight up. Those cost I think on the order of $10k plus his expertise (he manufactured them himself).