It’s been illuminating watching SpaceX and Blue Origin do their distinct styles of rocket development over the last decade. You rarely get such a clear real-world A/B test of engineering philosophies. Who gets to which milestone first is less interesting than the tradeoffs.
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Right now it might seem like SpaceX is way ahead. But if you watch the videos, New Shepherd looks a lot more solidly engineered. The booster landings are way smoother. And looks like New Glenn (2022) will suddenly get to parity with Falcon Heavy if it works.
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The right comparison is probably to Starship actually, since the Raptor and BE-4 are both methane engines 🤔
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Anyhow rooting for both to be wildly successful. I’d like to see both Starship and 3-stage New Glenn putting stuff and humans on both moon and Mars in my lifetime, and it seems likely.
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Also I’m on a mission to break up meme monopolies. That little girl gets too much of the why-not-both business and there’s several other ‘both’ memes.
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This reminds me of the debate between Freeman Dyson vs Gerard O’Neill on whether space exploration should be high-risk and scrappy Mayflower style or cautious and safety-first. Dyson criticized O’Neill for the opulence of the O’Neill cylinder concept.
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