The first Polaris mission is on an existing proven vehicle and the suits look to be in the final stages. It seems to have taken a lot longer than anticipated but I don't know if cancellation is likely. If aspects look too difficult they can alter the mission. The risk for the later Polaris Starship program is that Starship gets stuck in development hell which is still very possible.

There have been a number of tech companies that produced very successful and innovative products only to run into a brick wall with a successor product that was too ambitious or made wrong choices and either never made it to market or arrived too late.

The booster, raptor engines and launch infrastructure have been impressive and a lot of fun to watch but now we get to re-entry, full and rapid re-use, orbital refueling etc and the risks of a serious roadblock that eats all the cash and time increases in my opinion. I think it is great that companies are literally pursuing moonshot projects but we have to manage expectations.

[–] threelonmusketeers 1 points 8 months ago

Oh, I meant "I wonder if Polaris would ever do a similar mission", but I can see how my comment was ambiguous.

Polaris Dawn has been delayed a bit, but it looks like it has a good chance of launching in the next few months.