[FreakyT]

It's really a shame what has happened to Blue Origin. They've gone from a promising space startup to yet another purveyor of perpetual vaporware.

Where is the BE-4 engine? Delayed, again and again. New Glenn, the rocket that could actually go into orbit? Same. So far their only functioning hardware (New Shephard) is, in effect, a glorified amusement park ride.

Considering that SpaceX has actually made it to orbit multiple times, any rational actor would clearly choose SpaceX over BO.

[elif]

Forget orbit, SpaceX has paid for it's ISS contract about 3x in savings over Soyuz. Congress would be dumb to pick a new horse now.

[meepmorp]

> Congress would be dumb to pick a new horse now.

You're not optimizing for the same outcomes as Congress. NASA is a jobs agency.

[philwelch]

If you’re a member of Congress running for re-election, what’s a better sales pitch? “I voted for a slightly more cost-effective space program, which saved taxpayer dollars in a way that is almost completely disconnected from how much tax you have to pay”? Or, “I created jobs in this district by voting to award a federal contract to <LOCAL_SUBCONTRACTOR>“?

[jve]

> Congress would be dumb to pick a new horse now

I don't think SpaceX would be as strong if not that early NASA funding. "SpaceX contracted with the US government for a portion of the development funding for the Falcon 9 launch vehicle, which uses a modified version of the Merlin rocket engine." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_SpaceX

So by your thinking, they could have only invested in old-school-reliable-expensive rocket companies, because less risk is involved...

So funding a space company that doesn't yet have required capability but can be helped to get there - is not dumb.

[usehackernews]

BO didn’t want to replace SpaceX. That’s not what this is about.

BO said historically NASA gives contracts to multiple companies, and BO wanted funding too (in addition to SpaceX.

BO “argued that the agency was required to make multiple awards" because it had previously stated a preference for multiple awards”

[jccooper]

Blue Origin isn't vaporware. They have engines, they have rocket bodies, they have tooling, etc.

But they are, apparently, firmly in development hell, with no public indication of trying to change that.

[squarefoot]

The point is that Blue Origin isn't going to have anything ready by 2023 which is the year the crewed Artemis 2 mission should get the go. They might not be vaporware, but they're still several years behind SpaceX.

[nickik]

The definition of vapoware is things that are delayed continously after they should have been released.

The BE-4 fits into that.

[yborg]

It's telling that Bezos has chosen to take this fight to Washington DC - his only real hope is to kneecap SpaceX politically. It's not that Blue Origin lacks engineering know-how, it's that they brought in a ULA executive to run things and so he's running the ULA playbook - maximize profits by delaying things indefinitely to keep that taxpayer money flowing. Blue Origin wants SpaceX to play by its rules and slow to a crawl so they can compete. Elon Musk, for all his faults, wants to accomplish something and is personally driving things to get that done and is unwilling to settle for vanity wins and big talk to impress fellow billionaires at Davos. Unless Jeff can convince Elon to focus on salad fights over how high is up I'd say this competition is long over.

[peterkos]

Reminds me of a quote from the WeWork documentary: "When you can land two rockets concurrently on barges and you smoke pot, you're seen as 'quirky and likeable'. When you don't go public and your investors lose money, all of a sudden they decide that smoking pot is a criminal activity." [1:30:30]

[paxys]

Everything SpaceX is successfully launching today was similarly delayed during development. It's too early to write off Blue Origin, especially since Bezos just got involved in it full time.

[Retric]

Blue Origin was founded in 2000, SpaceX 2002. SpaceX achieved orbit in 2008. Blue Origin is still sub orbital yet planning on a moon mission.

At this point Bezos might be better off starting over with a new team.

[archsurface]

Similarly delayed? The delays are different by over a decade. Spacex was attempting orbit in 2006. When will blue origin? 2026?

[mattr47]

Bezos was never a scientist, engineer or dreamer. He is an entrepreneur, business savvy guy. Its about the dollar for him (which I'm not saying is a bad thing), versus for Elon it is a dream/passion to get to Mars.

[tigershark]

No, it wasn’t. Blue origin was founded two years before SpaceX. SpaceX in the meantime managed to create the first ever reusable commercial rocket, the first ever reusable heavy launch vehicle. The first ever commercial manned flight for the ISS. And it’s well on track to perform an orbital test in the next month or two with a fully reusable rocket that is using a full flow engine. Seriously, you are trying to compare an Australopithecus climbing a tree with an Homo sapiens building nuclear weapons.

[mr_toad]

Is Blue Origin slow, or is SpaceX really, really fast?

[monk_e_boy]

Yes and yes. I expect Blue Origin are playing catch up with star ship. New Glenn could only self land the booster, not the upper stage. There's no way that could compete with star ship, it almost doesn't compete with falcon heavy.

[bryanlarsen]

Blue Origin is slow, but doesn't stand out when compared to Old Space. SLS, for instance, is also taking a very long time.

SpaceX is really, really fast.

[2OEH8eoCRo0]

Slow and steady wins the race. I'm not counting them out, Bezos is so immensely wealthy that if he wants Blue Origin to succeed then it will succeed.

[bawolff]

The moral of the tortise and the hare fable is that the hare lost because he took breaks. He lost despite having a faster top speed not because of it.

[whatshisface]

Slow and steady wins the race against fast and transient, not, as SpaceX has been, fast and persistent.

[the_third_wave]

That is like saying that the meek shall inherit the earth - or what is left of it when the bold have taken all they wanted. Slow and steady is just that, slow. There is a place for it, e.g. when refining an established practice like mining or internal combustion engines. Commercial space exploration is a place where rapid advances can be made by visionary explorers, only once you can buy an off-the-shelf space minivan for the whole family the time has come for 'slow and steady'.

[inglor_cz]

This is not really a race, as it does not have a well-defined endpoint. Reaching the orbit is just a starting step for some other activity and former champions may fall by the wayside as decades go by.

Soviets were once in the lead very clearly, Roskosmos lost that edge a long time ago.

[adventured]

> Slow and steady wins the race.

Not if it's a 100m or 200m sprint. Try that and you'll finish dead last.

If SpaceX had gone with slow and steady, it would have merely given their monopolistic competition - competition particularly well connected in DC - that much more time to try to wipe them out using their preferred approach of avoiding competition via government protection.

Blue Origin may yet make something of itself via slow and steady pacing (which Bezos can afford), however it's not winning the race.

[pmoriarty]

It's not like immense wealth hasn't been squandered before.

[chasd00]

Slow and steady doesn’t work against persistently fast and right.

[jvanderbot]

Blue Origin is doing non-launch things. They are working on a lander system and studying lunar mission concepts at a level of seriousness that does deserve some respect.

https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/a-telescope-on...

I appreciate SpaceX's focus and god bless em for what they're doing in that sector, but there are other things to space than just delivery driving.