Scotius

You are lucky. Clinic in my town just announced start of vaccination program. For now it will only be aimed at people 80 years old and older. Next round it will be 70+, then 60+ and so on. They want to vaccinate... 30 persons per week. As our town has 7000+ inhabitants... it will take freaking years at such rate!

"Mission." Big word for a suborbital hop.

Noooo. We need a big contraption of crankshafts and electric generators! It's not like we can build relatively small, lightweight and safe nuclear reactors, that could provide our ship with all electricity it needs.

Like this? I bet we'll see walking cars on the roads faster than we'll see Orions flying. Again: Orion was a child of it's times. When: A: We thought nukes are answers to everything. Want a canal? Dig it with nukes. Want to reach deep oil reservoir? Blast it open with a nuke. Want to flatten mountain top for a new observatory? Blast the sucker with a nuke! B: Didn't knew better yet. Today we know better than to repeatedly nuke our own home. Also, good luck getting politicians and environmentalists on your side (without Apocalypse looming over the Earth). It's a slow slog getting approval for sending nuclear reactors to space, or getting nuclear thermal engine project rolling - and you want Orion? Not gonna happen'.

Nuclear powered crankshafts. Of course. And this here is clearly the best project for car propulsion ever envisioned: Yes. Those are legs. Because of course. I'd ask we stop beating this long-deceased equine, trying to make Orion look not like a fever dream of a mentally unstable survivalist... But i doubt it would work for long. So, instead: Ridicule.

Ouch. Someone pulled wrong lever too early? Technically, satellites are built strong enough to withstand minutes of sustained acceleration and shaking. But on the other hand, they tend to have fragile bits outside - solar panels, antennas, cameras etc. I bet there were many red ears after the incident.

That was quite short. Is it a good sign, or a bad sign? At least there were no flying bits

Time to dig bunkers in backyards! Or at the very least foxholes

It might be a matter of information. Widespread educational campaign explaining how the vaccine was developed, why so fast, and why it's still safe could go a long way in society. Instead media focus on every case of allergic reaction to vaccines, and people who become ill with COVID despite getting a shot. Unfortunately, drama sells better than reasonable explanations

Meanwhile in Poland, politicians, actors and celebrities are shoving themselves to the front of vaccination queue - ahead of medical workers etc. At the same time our government regretfully announces that teachers will have to wait longer for vaccinations, because there is not enough doses available.

Or harnesses with blinking lights. They will work well in shaded areas and during the night.

It had to be done #sorrynotsorry!

Lunar regolith is about as dark as asphalt. Why does it matter anyway? Inside of the building can be painted or covered in siding colored anything you want. Camouflage for the outside? Just shovel some unprocessed regolith on top of it and you're good to go.

If you're already going so far... why waste perfectly good biomass? And now we are in Soylent Green territory

I suggest you read Larry Niven's RingWorld series. His race of Puppeteers dealt with overcrowding by turning their homeworld into one giant city of extremely tall buildings, turning four planets into agricultural worlds... and draconian birth control. Barrring that, you could also dig underground, leaving the surface for food production.

It has been done before. Again, i will direct you towards BattleTech game universe: https://www.sarna.net/wiki/Operation_LIBERATION Yes, it could be done. At an immense cost in blood and materiel for both sides.

More like Napoleonic wars in XIX century - with travel times between theatres measured in weeks and months. No... wait! Early WWI naval warfare. Ships were powered by coal - with constant need to have access to either accompanying colliers, or safe bases with coal stockpiles. It also meant lower speeds, shorter range and regular pit stops to fill the bunkers. Long cruise would be long. Weeks. Months. German East Asia Squadron needed five months to sail from Marianas to Falkland Islands (August to December) Radio was still primitive and unreliable, so many times actual communication with HQ could take DAYS. If one of relay station didn't missed your message, and it never actually reached the destination. Also, commerce raiding. As in: not only attacking cargo ships of the enemy, but also radio stations, coal stockpiles and even shore telegraph stations. This article shows this kind of tribulations well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximilian_von_Spee#World_War_I Space warfare could very well look similar. With squadrons of warships either dragging their own logistical train of transports along, or having to regularly dock at friendly bases to refuel, take new missiles and do maintenance. If warships do not have gravitation modules (which generally would be a bad thing to have in a fight), every couple of months you would have to send crew planetside to not wreck their health. It would mean needing two crews for every active vessel, or sending the ship to dockyard for repair & refit. Holy balls of fire. The more i write the more i realize how much of a logistical nightmare interplanetary war would be Consider Earth. A bluewater sailor could be reasonably sure he would find water, food and fuel everywhere he'd go. It is not a given in space, unless every asteroid mine, orbital factory etc. is a self-sustaining habitat producing surplus of supplies, in case a squadron of warships docks there after a six-month long transfer from Earth to Jupiter system (for example).

"Military organizations are some of the most logically rational organizations on Earth, with often clear goals in mind." BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!111! HA! In XVIII century Holland built two ships of the line. Both of them so big, there was no way for them to leave the harbor they were built in. Both ships spent next twelve years or so rotting slowly in the port they couldn't leave - while government still had to pay for their maintenance. During WW II US Army somehow lost an entire train loaded with supplies for fighting units. All of it ended on black market, but no one could say how. Russia builds one submarine for 20+ years. Ship is old the moment it leaves the port for the first time. USA drowns a mountain of cash in F-35 program. It's so ridiculously overpriced it became a meme. My own country started building a corvette. Halfway the process the cost became so inflated, it was finished as much less capable patrol vessel due to lack of money (and political will to sink even more). China's first strategic nuclear submarine is so bad, it rarely leaves the port. Because when it does, everyone else know it, know where it is and how fast it's going. It's just so NOISY! And those are examples just from the top of my head. Please don't go there.

If the camber is isolated anyway, maybe spraying some white powder inside might help? Talc or something similar? At least it should show where air currents are going.

Thing is, nobody wants to read seventeen chapters about crew working their shifts, doing maintenance, filling paperwork and trying to combat boredom. This is the reason all media omit that part of the voyage. For the same reason space games have FTL drives and time warp. You can include this part in your writing, sure. But - unless you mix in a lot of dramatic happenings, it will kill interest of readers rapidly.

In politics, it marks you as a small, petty operator. Remember - no one likes sore loser Reputation is a powerful tool in the Game of Nations.

Or you could just decide that all FTL travel is done via wormhole Space Gates, like in X-Universe. And those Gates need to be placed at set (large) distance from the main star. In such setup you still can use rocket equation, because even with powerful (but non-unrealistic) drive it still would take days and week to reach inner system.

It works... as long as you deliberately NOT EVEN THINK about active fusion reactors of DropShips carried by the Jumper. And dozens of smaller reactors in 'mechs, fighters and potentially tanks loaded onboard said DropShips. Otherwise some smart... posterior might start imagining running a charging cable from Dropper to Jumper through the docking collar, thus gaming the system.

Yeah. Space travel is one of things ( sadly few ) BattleTech developers got mostly right. Aside from fusion drives being overpowered as all heck, and hilariously low fuel requirements of in-system vessels it's pretty hard Sci-fi (Just... for the love of your sanity, don't try to calculate density of starships from their dimensions-to-mass ratio ). FTL is annoyingly slow and limited in range, JumpShips have rotating modules providing gravity for passengers and crew, DropShips have maximum safe acceleration levels and do proper flip-and-brake maneuvers on approach to the planet.

Excessive realism is not always the best road to take in a setting meant to be entertaining. Are you familiar with BattleTech universe? Earlier this year i've read a fanfic set there, that made one, relatively small change to the setting. Contrary to original version, militaries in this fanfic started using torch drive spaceships as relativistic kinetic kill impactors. In effect, two hundred years down the line already Grimdark universe was turned into nightmarish post-apocalyptic setting. Several originally untouched and thriving worlds (including the Earth) were turned into asteroid belts. Interstellar travel almost died out. Crews of few remaining spaceships lived in constant fear of being attacked and killed as potential world-destroyers, while visiting the surfaces of any planet. Advanced technology almost died out too, because industrialized worlds were prime targets of kinetic attacks. It was realistic... but i stopped reading it, because it was too dark. Instead of being an enjoyable read, it made me queasy. Tread carefully there.