Comment by southernplaces7

It's a wonderfully entertaining book and for that reason I loved it, but Andy Weir really, really glosses over and hand-waves away all kinds of other difficulties for so quickly and easily building a ship that can travel at nearly the speed of light.

He basically just has it work because the fuel difficulties are solved and bam, the main character can zip around nearby start systems at close to perfect C on a ship built with little more than our current 21st century technology. Fun, but not even in the most basic way an attempt at presenting any science seriously.

What makes it more amusing is that for many other parts of the main drama, he puts a lot of effort into making the descriptions and scenarios seem as realistic and science-rich as you could like. I suspect a lot of entertaining word salad there too though.