There are lots of things that are considered perfectly acceptable. provided they don't work. And of course everyone knows they really don't, which is why they're acceptable....
It's seldom that the fate of a shipful of men literally hangs by a thread--but it's also seldom that a device, every part of which has been thoroughly tested, won't work....
Child, it was, of the now ancient H-bomb. New. Untested. Would its terrible power sweep the stark Saturnian moon of Titan from space. or miraculously create a flourishing paradise-colony?
Bron is the offspring of infamous space pirates but instead of following in the family footsteps he decides to become an electronic engineer. Unfortunately, every time he tries to get out, something pulls him back in.
The star Mira was unpredictably variable. Sometimes it was blazing, brilliant and hot. Other times it was oddly dim, cool, shedding little warmth on its many planets. Gresth Gkae, leader of the Mirans, was seeking a better star, one to which his "people" could migrate. That star had to be steady, reliable, with a good planetary system. And in his astronomical searching, he found Sol.
A Time Traders/Ross Murdock Story Key Out of Time -the fourth book in the Time Traders series, following The Time Traders, Galactic Derelict, and The Defiant Agents- again features Ross Murdock as the hero. Accompanying a group of settlers to the now-empty water-planet Hawaika, he is sent back in time through a Time Gate... and must learn to survive ten thousand years in the past!
The Man Who Meant To Kill A Martian Bold and ruthless, he was famed throughout the System as a big-game hunter. From the firedrakes of Mercury to the ice-crawlers of Pluto, he'd slain them all. But his trophy-room lacked one item; and now Riordan swore he'd bag the forbidden game that roamed the red deserts... a Martian!
The colony "world" is a poverty stricken agricultural society with only two exports: the fermented products of their world's unique grapes, and the salvaged war equipment, now selling at about 1% of its true value. The legend of MERLIN, the super-computer said to have planned the grand strategy which successfully concluded the war. "If we could only find Merlin," the inhabitants said to each other, "all our problems would be solved.