[dotnet00]

New Glenn is manufactured with a different philosophy, so Blue can't be Starship levels of cavalier with testing. It would cost way too much to do with their current approach.

The factory tours for the two show this difference. New Glenn production is a lot more classical aerospace in terms of a high tech cleanroom factory being built from the start, versus a rocket that started out being built in tents that is slowly guiding the factory design as the tolerances are sorted out.

I think Blue's philosophy is pretty similar to the old space giants, except for being willing to invest a ton of money into improvements and new technologies without waiting around for the government to give them a blank check first.

Maybe we'll find that the thing limiting aerospace progress wasn't even that old space was afraid to test, but rather that they were simply unwilling to progress on their own initiative.

[pinewurst]

Even old space got further in 20 years than Blue Origin.

[dotnet00]

Did I miss a privately funded, reusable heavy lift rocket coming out of old space in the past 20 years?

[crawshaw]

That is clearly not true. SLS is much more expensive by any measure and is not reusable in any way. Other interesting work, e.g. rocket lab, is not old space.