help with a book.

i have been trying to write a scifi book (partially with the hope of helping to get an idea of how to get the colonizing of space going), but my understanding of certain types of math involved seems to be lacking (to say the least).

Im hoping others could aid me in getting things right. for those that arent hardcore scifi fans, one of the greatest killers of a story is having science that isnt anywhere near real.

for instance, I recently watched a movie, where a ship was sent to mars, with the reentry shuttle at the front. at the end of the trip ONE MAN went down in a lander for a few hours, while a two man team stood watch from space. they then turned around and came straight back.

the problems with these situation is immensed and innumberable, but this was required for the story to get the virus back from mars. had this been a real science story, it would have died long before you see the ship arrive at earth.

my story is as much about the technology as it is about the crews (multiple teams). at this point, im not even sure if it will be one book or more.

now for the problems im facing. the idea is that a group gets together and after facing many trials, builds an electromatic rail system that accelerates a "pod" up to 6 miles a second in a vaccuum chamber, before its shot out into the atmosphere at a steep angle.

in order to prevent the heat of the atmosphere destroying the "pod" in the 15 to 20 seconds it takes to traverse the atmophere, a jet of ions are shot from the nose. this interacts with the air, ionizing it, which allow the magnets in the nose to push them to the side. (yes, there will likely be high temperture on the shell, but the shuttle's tiles are designed to take higher temperature for longer.)

an unmanned pod would be able to accelerate at 12 to 15 g's while a manned one would be limited to 8 g's.

due to the distance a pod must travel, instead of having a single straight rail, they use two, one that is circular, and one that is straight for the final surge to the surface.

i was thinking of a rail about 5 miles in dimameter (15+miles in circumference), but i havent been able to figure out what the actual g forces would be. the plan is to have it accelerate at one g, and there would be the g from the earth, plus as it continues around the track, the g's towards the outside would increase. the combination of these would be limited to the amount listed above.

once in space, the unmanned pods would release multiple types of devices.

included is one that is sent to the moon, containing remote controlled simi automonious (computer equiped equipment that takes the commands from earth and tranlations them into the actual movements) robotic like devices that would first build a dome to keep the computer equipment in, then clear a "runway" (straight, leveled area) where sleds could land using "orbital mechanical landings" (simular to aircraft landing) rather than full rocketed landing (simular to helicopter landing), then a rail launcher. all the equipment to mine the moon for materials needed to sustain life would be sent well in advance of the actual manned landing.

a second type would be a sail type that would be used to capture small asteriods and bring them to earth orbit, where a remote controlled system would use them to build a type of space ship that would do the same thing with a manned crew allowing it to go much farther and capture much larger asteriods. once they captured a good canadate, they would start mining, and would use the unusable stuff to "fuel" their electromagnetic rail gun, which would propell the "junk" to high speeds, allowing a small amount to change the orbit of a large mass.

once in orbit, these larger asteriod would be "eaten" by a gouger satellite, and the remains feed into a "processing" station (likely unmanned due to the heat and vibrations involved) which creats the girders, and such that make up the stations and ships created in nearby.

the book or books is likely to occure over 50 years and will end with the first of a type of station intended to be part of a "cube" of 54 paired 500 m (radius) by 500 m cylander inside rails (keeps it stablized, plus contains all the shielding and power absorption/cooling systems). each of the pairs are alternating direction, and there are three lines on each side plus connected to the center. this makes the entire system ballanced in case it has to be moved, all troque forces are equalized.

the vast majority of the materials all come from space, with much of the computer and such that require gravity being manufactured on the moon.

i would appreciate any help in designing this system for the books, even if much of it doesnt every reach print. it makes the story more realistic if there are hints at things that are below the levels needed for the story, plus you never know which part will end up being needed as part of the subplots.