book idea (need opinion)?

Question

I have writen in here some ideas ive had and want to see what people think of this one.

We probably will never have the "Star Wars" ballistic missile defense system, but they did some upwith some other ideas.

One of them which i think is still in production if not in use, is a laser mounted aboard Boeing 777 jets (somewhere in the nose).

When we prove its usefull, a terrorist group notices and plans to steal a laser and plane if possible

Now the plane has been found but the laser is missing. Planes, rockets, and even a space shuttle come down by its deadly fire power.

Now the world faces a weapon they are not totaly sure how to stop, and where it is.

Answer 1

Pretty good idea. Here's another one for you. Give me source credit if you use it.

In prehistoric times, when people lived in caves, a pair of twin teenage girls, who were both very smart, invented mathematics and began the sciences of physics and astronomy. They started studying the sky.

Somehow or other (probably involving the Stefan-Boltzmann law - though it wouldn't be called that for another forty thousand years) they figure out the sun's radius, from from trigonometry find the distance between Earth and sun at perihelion and at aphelion, thus giving them the semimajor axis and eccentricity of Earth's orbit, as well a time of perihelion passage.

Observing several lunar eclipses gave them the sun's position at discrete moments of time, which let them know the orientation of the Earth's orbit in space: the inclination, longitude of ascending node, and argument of the perihelion.

How did they get the instrumentation needed for these accurate measurements? Why, some of the men of their tribe, who would do anything to earn the favor of the lovely twin girls, are also very smart and clever craftsmen, able to make such things as sextants, telescopes, filar micrometers, astrolabes, and star atlases, out of crude natural materials. Sort of like the Professor on Gilligan's Island. You don't hear from them much, except when they're taking a request or making a delivery. And occasionally a minor character pops up with a tale of the tribesmen's adventures and follies with their new machines. But the girls are the main characters, so let's keep the focus on them.

The two girls had long since discovered the planets. One evening, one sister said to the other: "Let's go to Mars."

Their mathematical adventures really begin when they attempt to figure out Mars' orbit. They discovered the "method of Gauss" (without knowing that it would have to be rediscovered by Karl Friedrich Gauss thousands of years later) and applied it to three angular measurements of Mars' position near an opposition of Mars with the sun. With a bit of figuring (which, if you put it in the narrative somehow, will be very educational to your readers), they determine the elements of Mars' orbit.

Then they set about finding the way from Earth to Mars, identifying the launch window, the details of getting from Earth surface to low Earth orbit, and from there into an elliptical transfer orbit with its aphelion at Mars. (Weaving a transfer orbit determination algorithm into your narrative will also provide readers with educational benefits.)

Meanwhile, the girls (and their formidable mom) keep the tribe's men busy building new technologies, including the jet plane, the rocket engine, the spaceship... all of which they test-fly, of course, being guys and unable to resist the fun. (The men make a fair number of discoveries, too, such as how the air pressure drops the higher up you go.)

It's up to you to decide whether to let the story include a Mars landing, or whether Something Really Bad will happen to prevent a landing on Mars by Cro-Magnon astronauts in 40000 BC.

Answer 2

It would be an interesting storyline, certainly, though it would require substantial research to appeal to the target audience (I'd picture it being received by the same sort who enjoy Michael Crichton et al).

It's the sort of book I quite like on occasion, anyway.

Answer 3

This sounds interesting. Keep up the good work.

Answer 4

I think it sounds like a great story line..! Good luck with it.