Sheratan is the name of a star in the constellation Aries which is supposedly ruled by the planet Mars. It was decided that it was far better to find a believable sounding name from a fairly "hidden" reference as it's not as obvious as to re-spell Mars or Aries into some other word.
MarsAstro doesn't pilot the CommandShuttle because in Astrology, Jupiter expresses more leadership. However, in sentai tradition, the red ranger is always leader. Everything else is true to form though. Mars is the god of war and wields a sword. Mars is also very related to fire. Hence his elimination technique: Mars FireSword Blaze. Also like Mars, Sheratan is a failure at the romances and fails the appeal of many women except for Lotia, VenusAstro.
The style MarsAstro supposedly conforms to is Kenjutsu which is the combative use of a sword. This art's origins hangs around the 11-12th century in Japan, according to Al Bowers. Theoretically, however, he's already had training in the Terranian equivalent of what Earth calls taekawndo, a Korean art.
We chose an Anime-style to our characters rather than a more true-to-life art because anime, like sentai, is a Japanese television and motion-picture style that has a fairly wide fan-base in America due to its high-quality.