My advise to listen to your companion.
Just 6 supporting points for 1.7 km long thing looks a bit too low, even one each 200 meters can be problematic(16 points total, at least) even if the thing looks like 100-150 high (thick).
- 200m it is something we can imagine, not that far off of modern rocket size, and in this case you have then imagine one engine or set of engines placed in one spot, like a modern rocket designs, lifts that 200x200x200m cube apllying force in a very limited area of that cube.
But it depends on materias it is made from - if it some carbon nanotbes reinforced hull then maybe it can be good as is.
Landing pad if trusters are reactive propulsion, the thing with all those pilars and delicate pads may indeed not survive even aproach of the ship, not only the landing. Current, way more moderate size rockets they do kind of putting their pads to stress test, not talking about this 1.7x0.2x0.5km ship.
Landing the thing on reactive propulsion will be a challenge, especially this vertical take off/landing approach. Not sure if any surface is good enough, it will act like huge plasma cutter or hydroabrasive cutter, in esence it constantly happening(sequende of many times per second) huge blast descending from the sky - it this kind of forces involved here.
So yeah, you may listen to your companion, if you do not have some warehouse of handwavium prepared for the situation, forces involed here are strong in this one.
To have a better subjective feel of what this situation is, as regidity and such, imagine it being made from rubber, it will descrbe behavior more or less acurately at this scale for any metall like material. To get to that rigidity which you subjectively expect from metals, from you expirience for those on small scale, you need much stronger material than we typically use.
PS
-1 already, wow that was fast, not asking for upvote, but maybe then -1 to antigravity assumption, and comment answer as well, no? Just to be fair.
PPS
Won't comment on the whole edit to the q, but one thing worth noticing
The same orientation it lands, the same orientation it can travel accelerate it space. No tilting floors required and such. There is no air in space to scream, lol.
- "The same orientation it lands, the same orientation it can travel accelerate it space. No tilting floors required and such. There is no air in space to scream, lol." Might that expose more surface area to incoming space dust than necesarry? – Garter Kukri
It could be a concern, which should be and can be solved for varity of reasons by variety of means, meaning necessity is always there and ways to achive the resilt are more than one. And for set of reasons a channel one has to clean, its diameter is more than the size of a ship, much more. So orientation for such small size(few km) really does not matter.
But you are mention Bussard jet scooping, and you scoop that dust particles along with the hydrogen stuff, so as the scooping process creates an cloud of gas/plasma you scoope and which creates the protection layer you require.
In this situation the orientation it even more so appropriate, and it possible to argue it is a better orientation than classical one for the shape, because the big side(top) facing in the direction to the destination faces cleared space already and skde faces/smaller surface faces perlendicular to safe/cleared space and from which some thinga may come. (You cleaned stuff in front, but there is a chance something arrives from the outside of that cleared channel - in front everything is cleaned, but from the sides something may fly from there.
it not exactly a strictly correct way to look at this situation, more strictly there is no preffered orientation, once front is cleared by collecting scooping. Which also not exatly correct, but too many variables. In your case orientation is rather matter of convinience - and convinience here powerfull engines facing doown, and interrnal floor top layout/orientation.
there may be some arguments for 90 degree turn, but it is not the space dust, in general and in your case specifically.
All in all with a scoop that collects material for reactive mass and energy - dust in front is not something to be concerned about. And diameter of the scop has to be much much bigger than ship size for to provide noticiable flow of materials, even if speed of the ship is high, so it more or less protected from dust coming from sides. So scoping solves most of the dust problems.