> you can use electric motors to propel a craft to around 500 km/h before ditching the wheels and starting your chemical rockets.
Makes me wonder if you could accelerate to orbital velocity using something like a maglev train and not have to worry about rockets at all.
That is the idea behind "mass drivers" on the moon I believe. Maybe that search term helps.
You can do that but it would require a track that is tens of kilometers long along with a magnetic levitation technology. My suggestion is something we can do right now with a basic landing strip. But yes a meglev is the end game. Needs to reach 8,570 km/h for moon orbital velocity.
You would have to do at least a circulization burn no matter the budget spent on maglev.