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Quote:

Originally Posted by tbzep

SpaceX vs Blue Origin

SpaceX
1st to space
1st to orbit
1st to reuse booster that did more than a bunny hop
1st to stick a landing from a "real flight"

1st to stick multiple landings (today)
1st to launch, orbit, and recover pressurized cabin
1st to deliver meaningful cargo
1st to orbit a car (Only NASA has done that one!)
1st to produce 5 million lbs of thrust
1st to have 27 +1 nominal engines kicking booty

Blue Origin
1st to stick a landing (by about a month, from a dinky bunny hop)
1st to reuse booster (from a bunny hop)

There is no space race between the two at this point. B.O. has a lot of catching up to do. Blue Origin fanboys will claim they aren't behind because they just have different goals, but SpaceX already has the heavy lift capability to launch hardware for either company's goals.

"Fanboydom" is stupid. Far too many talented people, in government and in business--people who *could* make space more accessible and useful to societal needs--have little or no interest in space exploitation or exploration, and:

We are incredibly lucky to have not one, but two, highly successful, forward-looking entrepreneurs who are both intensely interested in bringing the dreams of the pioneers of astronautics (Tsiolkovsky and Goddard looked forward to eventual planetary colonies, space colonies, and interstellar migration, as did later visionaries such as Gerard O'Neall) to fruition, and we are even luckier that they are both here at the same time. Not only do Bezos and Musk serve as "back-ups" to each other, but the business and personal rivalries between them increase both of their efforts to advance the state of the astronautical art. Neither Edison nor Westinghouse would have achieved as much as they did in so short a time (and in other fields, such as jet engines) without the competition of the other.

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