: Hard to say what the actual mass of the Autumn is. The only canonical value
: we had was a UNSC frigate or destroyer at 8,000 tons, which I think is a
: very bad estimate based on real world large items and even some fictional
: ones.

I did a quick calc, and for a ship that size, assuming escape velocity of 13km/s and a rocket exhaust of 4.5km/s, that means you'd need 135658.87kg per ton for 8000 tons, so thats 1085264000 kg of fuel, or basically the equivalent of 155037 elephants just the get the thing into orbit, assuming every last bit of fuel is burned. It'd be more if you want to fly the thing once in orbit!

Yikes.