Walking on the Sea of Clouds

Before permanent lunar encampments such as Clarke's Clavius Base (in 2001: A Space Odyssey) or Heinlein's Luna City (in The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress) could be built, there would have to be the first settlers--the first people to set up shop and try to eke out an existence on the Moon.
Walking On the Sea of Clouds is the story of such lunar pioneers: two couples, Stormie and Frank Pastorelli and Van and Barbara Richards, determined to survive and succeed in this near-future technological drama about the risks people will take, the emergencies they'll face, and the sacrifices they'll make as members of the first commercial lunar colony.
In the end, one will decide to leave, one will decide to stay, one will put off deciding ... and one will decide to die so another can live.

Gray Rinehart is the only person to have commanded a remote Air Force tracking station, written speeches for Presidential appointees, and had music on "The Dr. Demento Show." Gray retired from the U.S. Air Force after a rather odd career. He began as a Bioenvironmental Engineer, became a project engineer, then became a space and missile operator. Over the course of his career, he kept rocket propulsion research operations safe, fought fires as head of a Disaster Response Force, trained Air Force ROTC cadets, refurbished space launch facilities, "flew" Milstar satellites, drove trucks, processed nuclear command and control orders as an Emergency Actions officer, commanded the Air Force's largest satellite tracking station, protected militarily critical space technologies, and wrote speeches for top Air Force leaders. Gray is a Contributing Editor for Baen Books, and his fiction has appeared in Analog Science Fiction & Fact, Asimov's Science Fiction, Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show, and other venues. Through a quirk of fate, his story "Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust, Earth to Alluvium" was a finalist for the 2015 Hugo Award for Best Novelette. He is also the author of a variety of essays, articles, and other nonfiction, and a singer/songwriter with two albums that feature science-fiction-and-fantasy-inspired songs. Gray's "alter ego" is the Gray Man, a famous ghost of Pawleys Island, South Carolina. For more information, visit graymanwrites.com/.