1. I did it!
2. I eventually realized that when the resources are all gathered for a building, the building would spawn AND the associated astronauts' build action would stop. Before this, I thought I was losing astronauts when gathering the resources, because some astronauts happened to be inside a building's spawn zone as the building spawned. I lost two astronauts this way at the same time when making my second building 😅 I was worried I would lose all my astronauts. Only after deleting buildings later did I realize what had happened. (Also you can delete lower levels and make floating islands mwahaha)
3. I had fun! Though I had a difficult time understanding the breadcrumbs to the goal intuitively, so I kind of spammed a lot of stuff that felt along the lines of what appears in the hint dialogue instead of trying to reason through what I could intuit from the gameplay. I think this undercuts what otherwise would be "aha!" moments. Maybe more in-game feedback, hints of cause and effect for what might build a drill, what might kill an astronaut, etc would help create more a feeling of discovery? I'm spitballing here.
4. I think it took just shy of an hour to make the ship!
Awesome stuff all around! I like the theme, the simplicity of the mechanics and the red herrings.