Hi, sorry late reply...
You can ask in discord that your account gets put on someone's referral (for the 2 packs + epic). Yes, you can get an epic card after some conditions :D
The game has changed a bit since you played, maybe. You need to access your 'Colonization Pass'. From there, you see ability to start a new EVAC. Once you run the evac successfully, you get taken to a 'scaning' phase. This is the 2nd step. It might take a few tries, but you can do it with the starter cards! (Try and use a good pilot).
After the succesful EVAC+SCAN = Planet NFT. It will display in your NFT area, showing you a little about it.
He said the ability to get this planet will go away, for now. We are just lucky to be at the right place at the right time to get them. We are the testers! And we will mine real NFT from them, and start testing the game before it really opens up.
Eventually there will be more planets, but for now, these are limited. Maybe you should try going to friends house and playing it for the day :) You can try a better browser. The game runs in browser. BRAVE browser uses less system resources. Then close all programs other than browser...