Content Warning
Please please please please have an astrophysicist or aerospace engineer review your book before publishing.
I'm reading an award-winning scifi book right now and while the writing is good and the author obviously tried to get the science details down, they also obviously didn't do much more than read wikipedia. It's getting painful to read.
Content Warning
Passing through the central chamber of a rotating spaceship does not just make gravity magically switch directions.
You won't get acute radiation burns from existing in interstellar space, especially in a shielded ship. Or even in an unshielded ship.
The presence of the ship's engine nearby does not act as an adequate radiation shield.
Titan would never be chosen as Earth's first colony location.
Content Warning
It's highly unlikely that a ship in a random part of the galaxy will be able to see the same pulsars as Earth
You also can't measure the distance to a pulsar just by listening to one frequency.
Time dilation is not time travel. Things are always traveling through time, and going forward is fine
Content Warning
It's relatively simple to check the location and the date, given appropriate instruments. This is not something that would be difficult for an astronaut.
For a 9-24 month mission, the chance of an astronaut dying due to cancer is the exact same whether you're 17 or 50. There is no excuse for a mission to require 17-year-olds b/c cancer (it's a YA novel)
Content Warning
There is also zero chance that such a civilization would be able to build a ship that could run for 30,000 years.
The author did not do the math on how much prepackaged food it takes to support 2 people for 15 years.
Content Warning
If your astronaut truly thought that a lollipop-shaped ship would somehow magically rotate around the end of its stick end, creating artificial gravity in the ball end, your astronaut doesn't understand physics.
A planet that goes between the two suns of a binary star system is a BAD PLACE to decide to settle.
