(Yes, SpaceX's Falcon reached that milestone back in 2010.)
Notably, from a US policy standpoint, if they successfully become 'lift capability #2' then it's going to be difficult to ULA to continue on.
[1] Although if Starship's lift capacity keeps getting knocked back that might change.
Starship is vaporware, so there's nothing to compete with.
There's nothing even remotely reassembling what was advertised to the public (and sold to the government) as Starship.
It's Duke Nukem Forever.
If it can get its mass into orbit, it delivers what it sold. I'd currently put my money on a successful orbital launch of Starship before New Glenn re-flies a booster for a paying customer.
Vaporware is "late, never actually manufactured, or officially canceled" [1].
Starship is late, so you're pedantically correct. But so is New Glenn, and it started being developed when Falcon 9 made its first trip to the ISS. (2012.)
"a computer-related product that has been widely advertised but has not and may never become available"
It's not available and it's going to be the same as all products coming from their CEO - it maybe one day available, but only thing it'll share with original announced product is a name. Nowhere close on the cost/features/scale/etc.
Only things that were shown so far are prototypes that are many iterations away from being anywhere close to a product.
New Glenn is actual product that's just going through final validation steps.
Did you miss Falcon 9 and Heavy? (New Glenn competes with them, not Starship. Falcon Heavy can launch more mass than New Glenn, currently, for cheaper.)
> New Glenn is actual product that's just going through final validation steps
This is literally the first time they've successfully recovered New Glenn. Recovered. No reuse. It's the second time they've every flown the damn thing. It's impressive. But it's not "just going through final validation."
I have a background in aerospace engineering, specifically astronautics. It's wild to see armchair engineers shoot shit at major accomplishments like this.
https://www.space.com/space-exploration/launches-spacecraft/... ("China's 1st reusable rocket test fires engines ahead of debut flight")
For all the engineers that say management doesn't matter, I give you David Limp.
Management doesn't matter until it does.
(1) his management in the CoRo group did not lead to success, I feel we have/had floundered for about 7 years :(
(2) He only left CoRo to join Blue Origin like 1.5 years ago. There's no way his 1.5 years at Blue Origin has had a significant organization impact on their achievements. In 4-5 more years I think his impact will be more evident.
p.s. no offence to Mr. Limp, I must emphasize that he was a kind, polite, caring person, and certainly had the capacity for great decisions. It is unfortunate that CoRo hasn't had great success, and success may yet be just around the corner.
sbuttgereit•1h ago
I still can't stand the public relation heavy official stream... but even with all that static the rocket itself cut through.