Comment by philipwhiuk 2 days ago
> Just a reminder that Blue Origin was founded almost 24 years ago, nearly 2 years before SpaceX was.
And Ford Motor Companies was founded in 1903 and still hasn't gotten above the Karman line. Wow, they're a massive failure as a company.
Blue wasn't aiming for an orbital rocket for years.
Blue Origin's goal has been to move heavy industry into space, to realize the vision of Gerard O'Neill. For its first 5 years it was a think tank, trying to figure out the best way to get there. Neal Stephenson was one of the employees, and you can see echoes of their work in his writing.
Only after 5 years did they transition to becoming a rocket company, having decided that lowering the cost of access to space was the most important first step to realizing O'Neill's vision.
And they were right, it's just that SpaceX realized the same thing at about the same time and were much more successful at it.
Going from 0 to a large oxygen rich staged combustion engine and a heavy class rocket in 19 years is actually pretty good by industry standards. SpaceX is the exception, not Blue Origin.
In part, being a ULA supplier so they could get to space.
Didn't BO have a change in leadership in 2023 precisely because they were slow compared to SpaceX?
Edit: New Glenn was announced in 2016, compared to Starship's 2019, and they're approaching the finish line at around the same time. And I would say Starship was a far more ambitious project.