I could get past their survival (if they didn't there would be no more story!) but the level of technological development really strained my imagination. I mea

I could get past their survival (if they didn't there would be no more story!) but the level of technological development really strained my imagination. I mean, are we supposed to witness a space-faring civilization that can hoist a fucking city block on carbon fibers (or whatever) and move it up to space and then back down on Earth, while simultaneously: - It has no Cold War era level technology to build a dozen spy satellites to survey every square meter of the earth, with which most of the Part 3 plot would simply not happen; - It cannot build a simple propeller plane, so the pilot has to instead strip naked (I think - it's been a while since I read it) and wear some kind of scifi haptic feedback suit that will tell you how the wind is blowing so that you can steer your unpowered glider in the correct direction. Honestly the second point reads like the author's sexual fantasy leaking into the story.