escape velocity is a term that is a misnomer ie ..
from the escape velocity wiki page I linked to
That is correct in the sense that the term escape velocity is generally used to refer to what it would take to get completely away from the planets surface. This of course would vary depending on the mass of the 'planet'. They talk sometimes about the escape velocity of a comet. That is low enough that you could get away just by jumping. I think it can be a useful measure, but it does have to be used with care. If you were in a balloon at extreme altitude, like the man in the video, the escape velocity would be slightly lower than from the surface. Not much, because even that height isn't much further, relatively, from the center of the Earth than the surface is.
Escape velocity of course also includes the provision that the projectile's velocity with respect to the Earth would never fall to 0. And of course it is talking about a simplified system that contains only the Earth and the projectile. Other gravity fields will have a large effect on the actual velocity of the projectile.
you would pretty much need a computer program to calculate
the different elements involved in slices of time as
would be needed to get much further in the discussion.
All you need is calculus and it can be done by hand. It isn't always easy, but it can be done.
If you have a long enough acceleration period then you can achieve escape velocity. Your 1.001 kgF would do the job if it kept up long enough. And of course the escape velocity would be getting lower as the vehicle got higher.
And of course escape velocity implies a single impulse like being shot from a cannon. The only proposal that I have ever heard of that approximates that is a mass driver (rail gun) that would throw things into space from a high mountain. Not very practical for anything that is at all delicate, like people.
Bill Gill
