Destination Polaris

Polaris will become the mortar in the new space economy

The Polaris Dawn mission should launch in te next few days, the first flight in the Polaris Program, a first-of-its-kind private space development program. Business entrepreneur Jared Isaacman commands the mission, accompanied by his longterm associate Scott ‘kidd’ Poteet as pilot and two operation specialists, Anna Menon and Sarah Gillis, donated by SpaceX. Isaacman has a storied history as a daredevil, arguably beginning at age 16 when he dropped out of High School to work full-time in the computer business. Two years later he founded Shift4 Payments, which handles electronic point of sale payments in the US and Europe, producing over $300m p.a. revenue. In 2004, again following his passion, he gained a pilot’s license and in 2008 set the world record for the fastest jet flight around the world, at 61 hours and 51 minutes. Following this achievement he was awarded an “Experimental Type” ranking and established the Black Diamond formation flying team, specializing in close air displays with fast jets. However, Isaacman perceived there was some greater business potential to operating fast jets, so went on to found Drakken International in 2012.

“They [Isaacman’s team] realized they could buy fighter jets from all over the world: A-4 Skyhawks right out of Top Gun; MiG-21s; F-16s from New Zealand, the Czech Republic, Spain, Israel, and more. They could offer the government four or five planes in the air at one time for the same cost as flying just one F-16.” ~ AvBuyer.com

Drakken helps train military pilots to counter adversary aircraft like the Russian Mig 21, French Mirage F1 etc, providing a niche service for the world’s military. Isaacman sold a substantial share of Drakken in 2019 for more than a $billion, allowing him to pursue his passion for space.

“When in kindergarten, Jared Isaacman told his teacher he would go to space someday – and she said she’d be watching.” ~ AvBuyer.com

In 2021 he commanded the first private space mission, called Inspiration4, which set a new altitude record for a commercial flight. Subsequently he donated $125m to St Jude Children’s Research Hospital, which exceeded the cost of the flight, which likely totaled ~$100m.

Enter Polaris

Polaris Dawn crew in their new extravehicular spacesuits, credit Spacenews.com

The Polaris Dawn mission should extend that altitude record to 1,400km, flying so high it skirts the Van Allen radiation belt. In addition, they will use their Dragon spacecraft as a test-bed for future Starship technologies, such as radiation protection, laser communications and extravehicular spacesuits. However, Polaris Dawn is the least ambitious flight in the Polaris Program, which consists of three missions we know of so far. The proposed second mission should service the Hubble Space Telescope then use the Dragon spacecraft as a tug to push the venerated telescope to a higher and more sustainable orbit. However these are but warm-ups for the third Polaris mission, where Isaacman will command the first crew flight of Starship, SpaceX’s Mars colony spacecraft.

Jared Isaacman has paid hundreds of millions to further his space ambition but keeps his longterm goal close to his chest. However, that’s understandable behavior for any businessman who senses a new business opportunity that’s potentially worth $billions. Given what we know about the emerging space economy and evolving government needs, we can certainly chart some of the business applications which lead on from Polaris.

Open Sky

“There is a lot that we stand to gain out there and I think that the private sector investing capital, kinda accelerating this whole world of commercial space, is a really good thing… Governments aren’t always the greatest capital allocators, we can absolutely cheer them on in their great efforts but it’s great to cheer on the private sector too and the investments they can make in order to unlock this last frontier.” ~ Jared Isaacman