[Spaceships] getting into orbit without superscience?

[Prince Charon]

Originally Posted by Anthony

While true, metallic hydrogen, being a monopropellant, would be quite capable of blowing up without any mixing (metallic hydrogen fuel is probably impossible, metallic hydrogen hasn't shown any signs of being metastable, but it's not proven impossible).

You know a story is going pretty far into rubber science when the hero's spacecraft is armoured in 'an alloy of hydrargyrum and metallic hydrogen.'