Yeah, completely valid points and I accept the criticism / suggestions with open arms, so thank you! I learned a lot from your comment.

I was definitely stabbing into the dark with (and self-conscious about) the "distance" - how to make it close enough for curiosity but not outright danger.

Some of the laser + vacuum chunking details I was hopefully going to toss up to the somewhat unreliable (at least not fully informed) narrator, which I was definitely using as a crutch for not having better science details.

This is also part of a "write a short story every week for a year" project, so my research was definitely too limited. But maybe now I'll revisit it in 2023 with your suggestions. Thanks again!