Scotius

I hope this review does its work properly. Another failed flight would be seriously humiliating. Space exploration does not need this

No. That's mostly us - fans drunk on enthusiasm and hope - two things quick progress of SpaceX brought back to us. And this proposal is no different from plans of sending Europa Clipper and other flagship deep space missions on SLS.

To sidestep cooling issues: use a planetoid-sized, thermonuclear Casaba Howitzer. It will destroy everything you want gone, and doesn't need any radiators.

Or balut.

I will say FTL. The key to ultimate freedom. The rest we will find or make on our own.

*smacks DDE with a rolled newspaper* Bad DDE! Bad! No ORIONS allowed near the only habitable planet we have! Bad idea! Bad!

Unless you have magical fusion drives, pulling extra power out of subspace via handwavey sorcery https://www.sarna.net/wiki/DropShip Then... you can have everything you want and be happy forever.

Good point LOL Here's what i found on the Interwebz: "The Disney Star Wars trilogy earned $4.475 billion on a combined budget of around $720 million while the Prequel Star Wars trilogy earned (not counting reissues) $2.437 billion on a combined $345 million budget."

"Just as space battleships could not escape lighter craft and missiles as you wrote, the HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse could not escape the Japanese G4M and G3M bombers carrying bombs and torpedoes. Once they were spotted they were doomed. " And an obvious answer to this were task forces, with heaviest, most valuable units in the center of a circular formation of lighter units. Often such screen of massed AA fire would be combined with CAP of fighters provided by aircraft carriers. Add good radar coverage and things like AA shells with radar fuses, and you get a floating fortress. Mid to late war US Navy task forces were so brutally effective at mauling incoming air attacks, Japanese had to resort to suicidal attacks to score any significant hits. Then again - mature combat doctrine and coordination are things we almost never see in sci-fi works.

OK, i can sort-of see the likeness of the weird bottom bit. Still, ew

Cargo module? Why build new one, if you have one in use already? Especially for tech demo

Even when you are flat and motionless under 3g press, your heart still struggles pumping blood around your body. Your brain is pressed three times more than normal to the back of your skull. Breathing is three times harder than normal. What happens if you urgently need to use the bathroom? What happens if you are sick and vomit? What if you suffer a nosebleed? It's possible - risky and uncomfortable but possible. But outside of a "Do or die." situation, is there really a need for such high energy flight?

I want to believe! But... inevitably... I will hold back my enthusiasm until that thing gets put on top of a launcher.

Alien mirror! Because any mirror we could make, would be instantly vaporized by the first flash

Then you might as well write that this not-antimatter doesn't produce any meaningful amount of radiation, and be done with the matter.

If you are on tech level that allows to produce and manipulate enough antimatter to get an Orion-sized ship to space... you don't need a damned Orion in the first place! It only makes sense if your planet is dying, and you absolutely must launch as much as possible to space NOW! And you don't care anymore what you leave behind. Hint: It will be partially glassed radioactive wasteland. Also known as "What in the horseradish were you thinking, you colossal dum-dum?" idea.

That's a very ambitious plan Sample return missions are always exciting. Unfortunately, long experience tells me to expect numerous delays

That area looks pretty flat. No big boulders, ravines or hills. Good place to land big rocket on

Gold does have industrial uses. Producers of electronics would very much like to have access to plentiful gold supply.

What, he couldn't find enough paying clients to fill the seats? Yeah yeah. It's probably "Engineer walks across the bridge he built first." thing. Good luck.

Probably ungodly hour of launch had something to do with forum being... asleep I too watched the replay on YT - while still yawning and waiting for kettle to boil the water for tea.

Calm down, brother. Calm down. I feel your pain. We all do. But patience is the most important virtue any space nerd needs At this point, probably only nuclear fusion enthusiasts have it worse than we do.

It could work... once or thrice. After that, everyone but the dumbest pirates would take the time to breach the hull directly next to cargo bay. It's not like they wouldn't have days, or even weeks to do that in deep space. But if you have such acute piracy problem, it would be simpler to mount weapons on the outside and shoot the would-be boarders.

No, but once i dropped a boss with one sword swing. It triggered three different criticals at once: hit critical, sword special effect critical and boss own critical vulnerability to that special effect. It was two years ago, and I'm still chuckling when i recall that moment.

Lensman also gave us the Sunbeam; a whole star system altered to function as core, coil and vacuum tubes for a beam that directs the full power of the star into a fleet- and planet-annihilating beam. Lensmen and their rivals, Boskone, routinely flung planets at one another at relativistic speed in lieu of normal relativistic projectiles found in other novels. By the end they develop a way, both sides, to create wormholes that allow them to fire FTL planets at one another from intergalactic distances. Nevermind the fact that, originally, their "Super-Mauler" class battleships were created to kill relativistic planets in battle, and by the end both sides were producing them by the tens of millions and using them as frontline battleships. They mass-produced Death Stars! Ironically the Super-Maulers proved ineffective...because the Boskone forcefield tech was amped up before they were deployed, ergo they simply started using them as battleships instead. The Sunbeam was considered a stop gap against relativistic planet bombardment until they developed something better. The FTL antimatter planetoid projectiles mentioned in the opening paragraphs? Yeah they start mass producing those as well. Including smaller ones designed to be launched from bomber squadrons, and whole fleets of them to be used as interstellar bombardment against enemy planets and star systems. This was also considered a minor footnote by the end, where their FTL planets launched from wormholes could destroy star systems from intergalactic distances. The Lensmen at one point were thrown into another dimension where the laws of physics are different. After finally figuring out how to return to their home dimension, they went back to the other dimension and modified two planets to be thrown at Boskone. When they did, the "foreign" planets hit the Boskone planets at 15+ times the speed of light. This is copied from TVTropes page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LensmanArmsRace