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Edited to remove a maths error in using the rocket equation This is a cold gas thruster, so theoretical ISP of around 80 (breathing air being mostly nitrogen). Using the rocket equation. If we assume …

Most deep space craft do in fact use a single propellant system for these sensible reasons. For craft that have higher thrust needs or where cryogenic propellants become possible the performance diffe …

It is certainly possible to mount electronic components to survive 100G, see HARP which had instrumented rounds firing at thousands of G. The fundamental step is to mount everything in epoxy with the …

Question has been edited since this answer was posted, making it no longer valid. With 2020 era tech 'most fuel efficient' with a nuclear reactor available is probably some form of ion engine. Taking …

Electric propulsion also tends to lose most of the efficiency when working against an atmosphere, though with a quarter of a TW in play it might start to work like like a poorly performing nuclear thermal … Electric propulsion generally does not work well in an atmosphere or at high thrusts, so is generally reserved for missions where maneuvers can be completed over very long periods (weeks to months). …

Ruling out nuclear propulsion in the comments pretty much rules out electric thrusters of all flavours as well since the Juno mission is notable for pushing the limits of solar power, and only needs enough … Launch from Earth, gravity assist from Jupiter and possibly some combination of Mars, Venus and Earth but the key thing would be careful selection of launch window rather than clever propulsion. …

If mission duration is in years and overall mass is small electric propulsion may work, and do so for lower overall mass. …

Fundamentally soft landing a solid requires controlling the thrust. This is not totally impossible, as demonstrated by the Nulka system that hovers by adjusting away from the optimal nozzle shape to ' …

It is probably impossible to have a true Big Dumb Booster that is re-usable. The first issue is that the recovery hardware moves away from the 'dumb' part since any concept with recovery can be made s …

The Orion propulsion units massed in at 1 tonne each, so our system mass for this looks to be at least 20k tonnes, so looks like we need at least another 4000 devices to get out from Earth. …