And Baxter's 'Titan' is a great book - but it is a grim, dystopic read at times. I think portraying the book's Titan mission would be an interesting thing to do.
Perhaps you could do a sequel to the Baxter/Ares Mars mission? Imagine a scenario whereby they do a second, one-off mission to ameliorate all the hardware investment. Short stay or long stay mission scenarios can be investigated, though I imagine that even on the second mission, NASA would not be ready for a 500 day surface stay. Perhaps the trajectories could be 'tweaked' to allow a surface stay longer than the original Ares mission with York, Stone and Gershon, which was to be only 30 days. A stay of perhaps as long as 40-45 days?How? Design Reference Mission? Timeframe - in the late 1980's?1: A cargo and Descent-only MEM is designed to leave Low Earth orbit alongside the crewed Mission Module/propulsion stack on another, smaller propulsion stack. This time; the crew is 4x Astronauts not 3 as before. This will become apparent later. More enhanced Saturn V launches, yes - but this IS a fantasy, alt-history scenario after all.2: Upon arrival in Martian orbit, the Cargo MEM is sent unmanned down to the landing site first. If it arrives safely, the Prime Mission can proceed. The Crewed MEM lands close as possible to the Cargo MEM, which is carrying more supplies, tools, experiments and power generators - fuel cells and RTG units for power, which could be run to the crew MEM by extension cabling. Maybe even a larger, more capable Mars Roving Vehicle could be carried to allow further travels from the base site. Or merely two identical Rovers that could act as a redundant 'rescue' vehicle to tow back a broken down Rover if it is too far away for walkback constraints. The crew of four could conduct 'tag team' EVAs for more than 30 days, maximizing the amount of surface exploration time. Perhaps two of the crew could even live apart in the Cargo MEM so as to minimize the crowding 4 would have in only one MEM.3: With uprated or optimized Ascent systems propulsion over the first Ares crew's MEM, the second Ares crew's MEM is powerful enough to raise 4x Astronauts and an improved quantity of Martian regolith and rocks back to the Ares Mission Module waiting in Martian orbit. Then, it's time to return to Earth...
enjoyed Eyes Turned Skyward, but found it unbelievable due to the actual events of the real time line. Baxter's seemed much more believable. I did like the return to the moon aspects, but space stations are so dull. They just go round and round. Not high adventure, unlike the early days of Vostok, Mercury, Voskshod, Soyuz, Gemini, and Apollo. Not going anywhere.
You might be right about sending the cargo mission on a fast transit first - though if it were to do a fast entry, it would need an upgraded heat shield and a bit more delta v for landing; I wouldn't want to sacrifice the downmass capability of the Cargo MEM with a heavier heatshield and more propellants. Probably best if it just made a standard Hohmann transfer to Mars, a propulsive capture into orbit and a standard descent, albeit unmanned. If a second Ares mission were doing long stay; then the Cargo MEM would need to carry a small nuclear reactor and maybe an inflatable surface Habitat that could attach to the Crew MEM. And a separate Cargo pallet lander for more supplies? Because I don't think a second cargo MEM would be practical.Sending a cargo MEM to Mars (about 50 tons) would need what sort of propulsion stack? I'm thinking just a single refueled S-II departure stage with no external tanks and a single S-IVB to brake into Martian orbit if it were a fast transit. If a slow trajectory were chosen; say 9 or 11 months instead of six - then what about a single S-IVB for departure and an Apollo Service Module derivative with all six bay segments fitted with propellant tanks (29 tons capacity) for capturing into Martian orbit?
To me, it brings home just how long a Voyage to Mars would be. I have my doubts this would have work. So many things could have gone wrong, but they did spend years testing systems on Skylab and Moonlab. And developing upgraded J-2 engines and systems for storing fuel long term. He never says what they really are.
I have been trying, unsuccessfully, to write "Beyond Ares" that shows what happens to the crew after they return. So far, it involves only York. The passage of the splashdown is part of it. So far, I have some nice moments from the world wide tour they take, her meeting Neil Armstrong, Russia, White house dinner with the Reagans and Bush. Here Bush asks her to serve on the Space Council when he gets elected. They also meet JFK shortly before his death. Why I would love to see Ares 2, I envision a Lunar infrastructure. A small shuttle to fly crew to a space station, which Gershon gets to test fly. Then a reusable Apollo taxi to a Lagrange point lunar station that has a reusable lander to go to the surface. The Russians join the base plan during the Clinton years, using their upgrade N-1 to help in construction. Then a lunar base that in 20 years, becomes a colony on the moon. So by "today" we would have a 100 person base on the moon. It would be then, with commercial flights to the base and the rise of those companies, like we see today, that plans to go to Mars return. And with the experience of the Moonbase (Chaffee Base) that those plans become colonial. The final chapter has an elderly York, in 2030, watching the launch of one of those colony ships with her son, Ben. So, like our Apollo program, we retreat from deep space to the moon, and only after decades of staying in lunar space, do we get back to Mars. Sort of like how we retreat from the moon to low earth orbit.
I wonder if they would even go as far as to go back to the moon. I would think NASA would spend many years out of space trying to come up with a post-Apollo plan. IRL, one idea for the MEM was to be a heavy lunar lander, and those could be used to construct a base on the Moon. Of course, Congress would demand NASA to exercise post-Ares austerity, so they might lose funding for the Saturn VB and have to come up with a cheaper heavy lifter, or keep the Saturn VB and only fly it once every few years. We'd be back on the moon, but without any funding for any robotic exploration that NASA probably still wants.