[ohitsdom]

> preparing for a full orbital test

Rocket delays are inevitable. But since you mentioned New Glenn's perpetual delays, let's also be fair and note that Starship's orbital test has been teased by Elon for quite awhile now [0]. I happen to think an April/May launch is possible, but we'll see. And also good to note that this is still very much a "pathfinder" vehicle, in SpaceX's style of iterative design & test. So not at all the same as whenever New Glenn's first launch will be.

[0] https://twitter.com/ESGhound/status/1622680306342891536

[panick21_]

Yeah but New Glenn originally was basically a scaled up Falcon 9, aluminum tanks with first stage reuse. Starship is fully reusable, a much harder problem. New Glenn engine, while staged cycle are not that well optimized and its specs aren't that amazing. Raptor is (probably) the most advanced engine that has ever been fired.

Falcon Heavy beats New Glenn on most things, so New Glenn is more comparable to that generation rocket. New Glenn was sized up because Bezos wanted to have something bigger then Falcon 9.