Possible Storyline and Game Levels

I was lately contemplating over the story that would fit our spacecraft game. Here are two options I think I may like:

1. The player is fighting and at the same time running away from some evil corporation. The only way to win is to find enough evidence about the company and bring them to justice. The player wanders through the space following the scrums of information and getting closer to the final resolution. Similar to plot in the movie Firefly but with only one character. Hyper jumps available or just classic space travel between levels. Ship repair or upgrades available.
   
2. The player is lost in space and with half damaged ship is trying to find the way back home to the Earth. Each hyper jump or classic space travel gets the player to other more difficult level but closer to the Earth. Similar to the plot in the movie Lost in Space. Ship repair or upgrades available.

From our other EAE game design classes I found the level creation to be the most difficult task. To give it an early start I am brainstorming some possible ones here:

1. To train the pilot the 1st level would be just classical getting out of the asteroid field
2. Asteroid field + dangerous radiation star - pilot hast to pass by the dangerous radiation star, the only possible defence against the radiation is to tractor the asteroid so the player stays in its shadow. The asteroids are being vaporized and when too small the pilot needs to find another one to stay hidden from radiation rays.
   
   
3. Defend the passenger ship against evil robots - classical space shooter fight defending the helpless ship
   
4. Red matter escape - to finish this level and get to the other one is to penetrate an asteroid field surrounding the red star and avoid the evil enemy robot ships and shoot the Red matter into the star. This would create the black hole and the hyper-jump to next level would be possible.
   
   
   
5. Sticky nebula - again fighting the evil robot ships with possibility to get stuck in dangerous slowing down sticky nebula

The final level can be a spectacular battle (similar to Star Wars) combined with all above difficulties, boss ship possible...